Live Blog: Districtwide Fundraising Hearing

6 p.m. The meeting is supposed to have started. The Board of Education remains in closed session. The boardroom is already filled beyond capacity. There is an overflow room. A security guard was hired for this meeting.

6:25 p.m. The meeting has begun. The board is recognizing National Merit Scholarship Program students and semi-finalists from Santa Monica High School. Lots of people were standing in the room, many of them were kicked out because of fire regulations. Both doorways to enter the meeting room are stuffed with people. 

6:30 p.m. The recognition has concluded. Now, the board is proceeding with the meeting. There are several items on the agenda. It could be about 30 minutes until the Districtwide Fundraising item is heard. Board President José  Escarce has again told people who are standing to leave the room. He is delaying the meeting until they leave.

6:35 p.m. The board is now taking public comment for items that are NOT on the agenda. This means Districtwide Fundraising will not be discussed at this time.

6:37 p.m. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to post in the comments section below. You can also email me at jonathan.friedman@patch.com. Please excuse misspellings or grammar errors. I am doing my best, but this is a fast-moving session.

6:40 p.m. Student board members are giving reports on what is happening at their high schools

6:50 p.m. The school district union leaders are giving their reports.

6:55 p.m. The school board is now voting on various measures. Districtwide Fundraising is a discussion item today. There will be no vote. A vote is expected to take place on Nov. 29 in Santa Monica.

6:56 p.m. The board was just alerted there is not enough room to sit in the overflow room. People are crowding the hall outside the boardroom. It is noisy because the doors are open.

7 p.m. Board President José Escarce is telling people they cannot block the doorways. He assured them if they go to the overflow room, which is showing the meeting on a TV, they will still be able to speak in the boardroom after their names are called (if they submitted speaker slips)

7:30 p.m. The board is receiving a presentation on the district's new technology plan. This is the last item before Districtwide Fundraising.

7:48 p.m. The Districtwide Fundraising presentation is about to begin. Board member Ralph Mechur says he is leaving the room, and will not be present during the hearing because his life partner Linda Gross is the director of the Santa Monica-Malibu Education Foundation, the nonprofit that the proposal designates to head the Districtwide Fundraising effort.

7:51 p.m. Superintendent Sandra Lyon is making a PowerPoint presentation of the proposed plan. It is a similar presentation to the one that was made at  two weeks ago.

7:52 p.m. Julia Brownley, Malibu and Santa Monica's representative in the state Assembly and a former Santa Monica-Malibu school board president, has entered the boardroom. She is standing against a wall. I wonder if Board President José  Escarce will kick her out of the room.

8:03 p.m. A copy of Sandra Lyon's presentation can be found here http://www.smmusd.org/brd1112/DistrictwideFundraising2.pdf. There are a few adjustments.

8:10 p.m. Lyon is making her final comments. She says this will give flexibility for schools to maintain programs. "Schools will still have autonomy." She says it is good that PTAs will be "relieved from having to fundraise for salaries" and they will be able to deal with advocacy, volunteering and other traditional things for PTAs.

8:12 p.m. Lyon is presenting some new features that were not in the previous presentation. She says this policy should be phased in, starting with elementary schools, with the rule restricting the collection of corporate donations in excess of $2,500 to Education Foundation going in effect immediately for elementary schools. Corporate donations that are already budgeted for this school year would not be affected.

She also wants a Memorandum of Understanding between the district and the Ed Foundation that would establish what is expected of the Ed Foundation.

8:14 p.m. She says this should not be thought of as a "cleaning house," but as a change in policy. She recommends people read the book Switch by the Heath brothers, which is a book about making difficult changes.

8:16 p.m. The presentation is finished. Public comment is about to begin. Board President José Escarce says there is an unprecedented amount of speaker slips. People are limited to two minutes. He asks that nobody boo or clap so that everybody can feel comfortable speaking.

8:19 p.m. Assemblywoman Julia Brownley, former Board of Education president, is the first speaker. 

8:20 p.m. Brownley says state funding of education is too low (an opinion shared by probably everybody in this room). She says the inadequate state funding created the equity gap in California. She says there have been legal challenges regarding equity gaps, and this could happen again.

Brownley says, "Collectively, we will find the right path and the right timing to make this a policy we can all be proud of." (Editor's note: there is actually no plan on the table of how to implement the plan. After this proposal is approved, a committee will be formed to finalize specifics, which will be submitted to the board for approval)

8:25 p.m. Ted Kahan, Education Foundation board member, is speaking. He says the Ed Foundation is "fully prepared to participate in a constructive and cooperative manner" if the board approves the policy. He supports the creation of a Memorandum of Understanding that would define the relationship between the district and the Ed Foundation." He says the Foundation understands that any agreement will require complete transparency and accountability for the Foundation. 

8:28 p.m. Linda Gross, director of the Education Foundation, says she believes the community can come together to do Districtwide Fundraising. 

8:30 p.m. Tamara Mugalian, a teacher at SMASH school in Santa Monica and a mom in the district, says she favors Districtwide Fundraising.

8:32 p.m. A Spanish-speaking Santa Monica parent says through a translator that she supports Districtwide Fundraising. She says site-to-site discrepancies in PTA funding within the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District have become more harmful as state funding of education is reduced. She says the district's goal of achievement for all parents becomes meaningless when private funding creates large inequities among schools. She says the achievement gap cannot be closed when certain schools are getting more money.

8:38 p.m. A parent of a student attending Edison Language Academy in Santa Monica says the funding gap between the haves and have-nots is the major civil rights issue of this time. She says if you are a student of color or low-income you are more likely to get a lesser education.

8:40 p.m. Sonya Fox Sultan, a Santa Monica resident, says the board should pass the proposal and not be talked into watering it down or delaying approval. She says she lives in North of Montana (which is the wealthiest area of Santa Monica). She says affluent, influential parents in the 1990s stopped Districtwide Fundraising from going into effect when it was headed that way.

8:42 p.m. Bruce Sultan, Sonya's husband and an attorney, is speaking. He is a parent of three grown children. He is a former trustee of the Ed Foundation. He is praising Ed Foundation director Linda Gross. He says the board should approve this policy without delay. He says fundraising in the district will increase if the policy is approved.

8:45 p.m. Sylvia Martinez, a parent at John Muir Elementary in Santa Monica, says that she is representing that school's parents. She says the parent who was supposed to speak could not attend the meeting because she has to work. She says many of the parents at the school work long days in low-wage jobs, and they can donate very little money compared to what is needed.

8:48 p.m. Malibu parent Derek Newman says approval of this policy will lead to three problems 1) people will stop donating, 2) people will send their kids to private school, 3) there will be reduced funding of the district from the state because funding is based on average daily attendance.

He says that the superintendent's presentation showed statistics that favor the proposal. He would like to see a PowerPoint presentation that shows other statistics that would not be as favorable, including examples of districts where this policy has not worked.

8:52 p.m. Parents from Franklin, Roosevelt and Grant elementary schools in Santa Monica are doing a joint-presentation in favor of the proposal if it is done under certain conditions that they say must be done to ensure there are no staffing cuts at the schools. A copy of their presentation is attached to this blog. They want a restructuring of the Ed Foundation to include a representative from each school and a highly qualified development officer with "demonstrated experience running multi-million dollar fundraising campaigns in an education setting."

8:57 p.m. Kim Moran, president of the PTA at Grant Elementary in Santa Monica, says people want more information on this proposal. She says there is not enough information on the proposed policy. She wants the board to request more information on all funding sources for the district, per-pupil spending policies and practices in the SMMUSD and how other districts do centralized fundraising. She says Palo Alto, one of the district’s Superintendent Sandra Lyon says is an example where Districtwide Fundraising has worked, is very different from the SMMUSD. Moran says she wants a clear and detailed vision with data.

9:02 p.m. A Roosevelt Elementary parent says he supports the joint statement of the three Santa Monica schools. He says this policy cannot be about cuts, it must be about achieving excellence in all of the schools while maintaining the excellent programs that already exist at some schools. He wants a two- to three-year implementation process, and during that time the district should bolster the Education Foundation. The superintendent wants the plan implemented by 2013.

9:08 p.m. Former school board member Barry Snell says he strongly supports the policy and calls it a "courageous move by our school district." He says if it is approved, the superintendent should get "a wide variety of viewpoints across the district" to finalize how it will look.

9:09 p.m. A Santa Monica parent is speaking in favor of the policy. She is crying. She says everybody deserves a good education, not just the wealthy ones.

9:10 p.m. A Santa Monica parent says she is devastated to hear some schools have more enrichment programs than the school her kids attend.

9:12 p.m. A parent at McKinley Elementary in Santa Monica says the disparity among schools is too great and it is "almost laughable to call this a public school system." It's clearly not a public school, it's become privatized, he says. He says this is classicism and that "we got into this" because of a flawed system.

9:16 p.m. A Santa Monica parent says "we need to share the wealth" and likens the situation to the 99 percent vs. 1 percent issue with Occupy LA.

9:21 p.m. Ten Malibu residents are about to make a joint presentation that will total 20 minutes. Several people groaned in the audience.

9:22 p.m. One Malibu parent says this is a shifting of money from Malibu to Santa Monica—all Malibu schools lose money and all Santa Monica schools gain.

9:24 p.m. Malibu parent Tia Carrere says it is unfair that Juan Cabrillo Elementary would lose money, while Franklin in Santa Monica would gain money. She compares statistics of the schools, saying Juan Cabrillo has more low-income students, minority students and lower API scores, and this is an example of the unfairness of the proposal.

9:27 p.m. Another parent talks about the extraordinary amount of money a centralized fundraising source would have to raise to distribute money to all schools equally and maintain the current standard at the Malibu schools. She also notes that Malibu has no residents on the school board.

9:28 p.m. Another parent says the top fundraising is from Malibu, and Districtwide Fundraising would alienate many of those parents. They will send their children to private school, he says.

9:30 p.m. Another parent criticizes the superintendent claiming this plan has worked in "like districts" such as Manhattan Beach and Palo Alto. She says there are differences, including that the SMMUSD is not a continuous district (Santa Monica and Malibu are separated by Pacific Palisades and Topanga) and demographics are different.

9:32 p.m. Another parent says other districts raise money from non-parent sources, and Santa Monica-Malibu does not. She says other districts are also raising money through events that the SMMUSD does not do.

9:34 p.m. Another parent brought up the idea of a sister-school program, where PTAs could help each other. A school that raises more money could hold a fundraiser for a school that makes less money

9:36 p.m. Another parent says the burden of this proposal falls on Malibu, which has no representation on the board.

9:37 p.m. Another parent says it is not "approve this or nothing." She says a committee should be formed to come up with an alternative plan.

9:42 p.m. A Juan Cabrillo parent says he opposes the plan. He says because fundraising is more difficult at his daughter's school does not mean the school should get to receive money from the other Malibu Elementary Schools. 

9:45 p.m. Kim Bonewitz, president of the Juan Cabrillo PTA, asks for a delay and to put a committee together to get some answers about what the policy is before voting on it.

9:48 p.m. Another Juan Cabrillo parent asks for more information. "We have no information on which schools will be harmed ... where the money is going to come from. I am seeing some real scary graphs." "I don't see a plan here." She says other parents are touring private schools because of this plan.

9:52 p.m. A parent says people will donate less money to a plan they don't understand. They might prefer to give their money to a candidate for school board to oppose somebody who approved the plan or maybe to fund a recall election. A roar of applause could be heard from the overflow room.

9:54 p.m. Charlene Underhill Miller quotes Simon & Garfunkel, saying, "Slow down. You move to fast." She says, "Angry parents will not give. I'm sorry, they won't."

9:56 p.m. Kathie Ferbas of Malibu says this is a plan of flawed economics and she says the board should work on a plan on “how to lift everybody up rather than bring everybody to a mediocre middle ground that serves nobody.”

10:05 p.m. Several parents boo a speaker from Malibu. After the speaker concludes her comments, some people applaud. Board President José Escarce says he will clear the room if he hears applause again. A Malibu parent says that is not fair because people booed. Escarce denies that this happened. The woman storms out of the room, and says this is an example of what happens with lack of Malibu representation on the board.

10:08 p.m. Sally Miller, PTA co-president at Will Rogers Learning Community in Santa Monica, says the policy needs to be approved without adjustments and delay. She says the disparity about funding in the district has been debated for years and decades. "The time is now. The district and the community cannot afford to wait."

10:11 p.m. Laurie Lathem, PTA president at Edison Language Academy in Santa Monica, says the policy should be voted on by the students in the district, and they would all be in favor of it regardless of what school they attend.

10:12 p.m. Erin Inatsugu, PTA co-president at Will Rogers in Santa Monica, says the policy must be approved without adjustments or delay. She says parents should not be able to control education in a public system because they donate more money. She presented a petition with over 100 Will Rogers parents' signatures that she claims she collected in an hour.

10:15 p.m. Area Kramarsky, PTA president at McKinley Elementary in Santa Monica, says the Ed Foundation proved its ability during the SOS fundraiser in the summer of 2010 that prevented drastic cuts in the district. She says "You cannot get blood from a stone. Title 1 parents are not lazy, they are just poor." She says Districtwide Fundraising works. 

10:17 p.m. The president of the PTA at John Muir in Santa Monica, says the protests against the policy are based on fears that are unjustified.

10:20 p.m. A parent from John Adams Middle School in Santa Monica says this is an attempt to create a strong, robust Education Foundation. She says the district parents are not supporting it like they should. She says this is a progressive district, except when it comes to fundraising and education equity.

10:21 p.m. Seth Jacobson of Malibu says that he spoke to four major corporate donors that support the Malibu High Shark Fund, and they all told him that if this were approved they would not be adjusting their donations to get the Shark Fund the full money it is receiving now. This is reality, he says. "I'm not here to fear monger."

10:23 p.m. Malibu parent Karen Farrer notes that the Board of Education and the Ed Foundation board have no Malibu residents. She says "We are the minority. In fact, I don’t even know what we call that. We're the zero." She says this policy will dismantle programs in Malibu that have been built over the past two decades. She says it is wishful thinking that everybody will step up and raise more money if Districtwide Fundraising were implemented. "Here in the real world, that is not how it works."

She says only a quarter of Malibu High parents have donated money this year, and asks the board how many people do they think will donate if the parents' money won't even be going to the school anymore, but rather a central pot.

10:26 p.m. Gia Dowling, a former Ed Foundation board member, says she resigned because she believed she could be more effective by raising money for her child's school. She says many people have resigned from the Ed Foundation because it is not a professional fundraising organization. She says there are plenty of people in the district who actually are involved in professional fundraising who need to be consulted.  "I have seen professional fundraising, and they are not it," she says of the Ed Foundation.

10:30 p.m. Debbie Bernstein, who grew up in Malibu and lives in Santa Monica, reads a list of famous SMMUSD alumni and high-profile local businesses she says could make donations to the district in a good fundraising effort. She says the Ed Foundation has been incompetent for 30 years.

"Something is wrong when in the 21st century when we are still selling raffle tickets and lemonade to raise money."

She questions why it is allowed to continue like that. She asks, "Is it because a longstanding board member is arm and arm with the head Foundation," not so subtly referencing Board member Ralph Mechur's relationship with Ed Foundation Director Linda Gross. This is followed by lots of "ooohs" from the audience. She says she supports centralized fundraising, but the Ed Foundation is not capable of raising the amount of money it claims it can.

10:37 p.m. A Santa Monica parent says he does not understand why the district can't enhance Districtwide Fundraising with an emphasis on enhancing equity while also maintaining ability for schools to continue fundraising as they do.

10:40 p.m. A Santa Monica parent says the only reasonable plan would be not touching the private funding at all, but focusing on the corporate funding. He says there are many corporations in the area that the district has not tapped into. He says, "We need a professional fundraiser, somebody who knows what they're doing."

10:44 p.m. Diana Oliver, PTA treasurer at Roosevelt Elementary in Santa Monica, says the SMMUSD should have gotten parents involved in the process prior to this month. "I know that you need us. So it would have been great had wee been brought in from the get go, not at a time when you’re making a decision on it."

10:48 p.m. A Santa Monica parent criticizes the superintendent's presentation for not including in-depth information, but rather "blurbs." She says the board should decide "to take more due diligence; show us some more facts, more figures on how things work because right now, I wouldn't be able to make a clear decision."

10:56 p.m. Cheri Orgel, field rep for Assemblywoman Julia Brownley, is speaking as a community member. She says the discussion of inequity has been happening for 20 years. She was on the board of the Ed Foundation. She praises director Linda Gross and others affiliated with the Ed Foundation.

She says the SMMUSD is a community of action that frequently has "to fight the impulse of the fear of 'the what ifs' or the impulse to go forward only if we can craft perfection. She says, "This community does not shy away from identifying that which is less than effective, and then doing the hard work to fix it."

11 p.m. Rochelle Fanali, Santa Monica parent, says that Palo Alto Unified, which has established the Districtwide Fundraising policy, is similar to the SMMUSD. She says the same "fears" that are presented about the plan here were also stated in Palo Alto, and they did not come true.

11:05 p.m. Cynthia Torres, a member of the district's Financial Oversight Committee, says the FOC is concerned about the district adopting a policy when it does not know how it will work in practice. She says discussion of "implementation details" must be done before approving a policy. She says other districts that approved Districtwide Fundraising, which she has studied, did not adopt a "philosophy first" and then later an implementation plan. They approved both at the same time.

Torres' comments can be found .

11:27 p.m. A parent at Will Rogers in Santa Monica says she supports the plan, and that this is a civil rights issue. She says she cannot believe that there are so many people not supporting something that is "so obvious."

11:31 p.m. A parent at Will Rogers in Santa Monica people should not be allowed to create their own little private schools within a public school district. 

11:43 p.m. A Malibu parent says he came to support the plan, but there are details that have not been accounted for. He says he doesn't see anybody supporting his community. He says there are other options. He says he should be allowed to give to his school without having to give to other schools. It's his choice.

11:45 p.m. A Santa Monica parent says "you can't gloss over categorical funds" that the Title 1 schools receive when considering this plan. She says the Education Foundation "really needs to step it up." 

11:51 p.m. Malibu parent Robert Ross says the issue has been framed wrong. He says he wants to help other students, but he also doesn't like all the "pot shots."

"It's pathetic that we're having this meeting and fighting with one other. Why isn't there this galvanized support to get together and raise some money," he says.

11:53 p.m. Chris Harding, husband of Board member Laurie Lieberman, says "this is a core civil rights issue." He said the proposal needs to be passed now, and the details can be sorted out later. 

12:14 a.m. After a brief break, public comment is done and the Board of Education is about to begin its comments.

12:16 a.m. Superintendent Sandra Lyon says that it is not a common practice in other districts to hire personnel with site-based fundraising. She says that the district administration could just say it is no longer allowed. 

12:20 a.m. Lyon says she has not found in her research any districts that have rolled back on districtwide fundraising after implementing it, but it is possible this might be discovered during further research that will happen during the process of finalizing the policy.

12:26 a.m. Lyon says she has not done much community outreach on this plan. But this will be done next.

12:33 a.m. Board member Ben Allen asks if it would be possible to redistribute money from the district's general fund to create equity among the schools. Jan Maez, the district's chief financial officer, says she does not know any district that does that.

12:42 a.m. Lyon says people in Manhattan Beach got on board with thinking big picture for fundraising after they officially could no longer raise money for personnel at the individual school. She says even with this policy, there will still be inequities at the schools because of the equipment schools can purchase through PTA funds.

12:45 a.m. Board member Nimish Patel says if somebody doesn't like how he's doing, he can be voted out of office, but he is not sure how the Ed Foundation is accountable. Lyon said the Ed Foundation has a board and "there are other mechanisms." She added that the Memorandum of Understanding between the district and the Ed Foundation will spell out the specifics for keeping the Ed Foundation accountable. 

12:50 a.m. José Escarce says that if the district tries to finalize the details of the policy before approving it, it will delay the process for months and possibly years. He says a better policy will be created if how to implement is determined after approving the policy.

12:57 a.m. Board member Oscar de la Torre says it is difficult to hear about all the "mistrust." He says, the reality is we're trying to deal with hard social issues—inequality that comes from poverty. There are certain social factors we don't have a lot of control of, but this is something we can weigh in on, he says. But it's a hard sell (noting you can't force people to donate).

1:05 a.m. De la Torre says the money in this plan is going to children who are in need, "the result is that we will create a better community." He says the district should be very careful on how the policy is implemented. "We're not in the business of destroying anything that anybody has built." 

1:10 a.m. Board President José Escarce says he "wholeheartedly" supports the policy, and believes it should be approved without delay. He says the board's duty is to equalize opportunities in the school district, and he can't imagine recommending any other policy as a policy maker.

1:12 a.m. Board member Laurie Lieberman says the school board doesn't have a choice, it has to be concerned about all students in the district. She says if everybody works together as a district, money can be raised to provide a "premium education" for all students. She says time should be taken to craft a good policy after "a framework" is adopted at the end of the month. She says this is a "big culture change" for people and the district will need to make sure it is done right.

She says one thing that is shown in this is that the district must improve its private fundraising overall. She says the district has not been successful at getting corporate donors, and that is something that needs to be done.

1:30 a.m. Board member Maria Leon Vazquez says she supports the policy. She says the Ed Foundation was "targeted by the naysayers" during the meeting who are opposed to the policy. She says this policy will increase the chance of corporate gifts because the corporations are going to give more money if the district is asking as a whole for contributions.

1:35 a.m. Board member Nimish Patel says nobody on the board made up their mind before this hearing. He says "this pie [of money] does not have to shrink" and the community will be united with this policy.

1:40 a.m. He says he understands the fears of the people who spoke today, but he does support the policy. He says there should be a strong Memorandum of Understanding between the district and the Ed Foundation to empower the Ed Foundation to be able to do what it needs to do, but also to make sure it is accountable.

1:45 a.m. Oscar De la Torre says all the concerns about the policy will be addressed while the policy is finalized.

1:46 a.m. Ben Allen says the guiding principle should be "to raise all ships" and not to have parity for the sake of parity.

1:50 a.m. Board President José Escarce says he expects the superintendent to create a top-notch advisory group to develop the policy for implementation. 

1:53 a.m. The meeting is adjourned. The board will officially vote on the policy Nov. 29 in Santa Monica.