Posted by judy, a resident of San Ramon, on Oct 18, 2011 at 7:48 am

When the teachers received the two furlough days it was also negotiated that they have the right to vote, by site, on the hours of their school day. At Coyote Creek this vote resulted in Early Bird/Late Bird for the first and second graders. Over the course of three years, this results in a loss of instructional time of more than 5000 minutes (counting the early bird/late bird for K students)for Coyote Creek students in comparison to our nearby school, Quail Run. Both schools feed into Gale Ranch Middle. How equitable is it that my children receive over 5000 less instructional minutes than the Quail Run students. Will the district now reinstate the originate bell schedule, as they are now paying the teachers for the furlough days? I doubt it.

Posted by Ms. Bunny, a resident of San Ramon, on Oct 18, 2011 at 9:32 am

These remain, hard times for everyone. MANY have not received a pay raise of ANY kind, since the 2007 economic downfall of business and life in general in this country. -And I don't begrudge these teachers a couple of days of pay, as I believe some incentive is needed to KEEP GOING under the circumstances. Where I will, invariably "draw the line" ??? -Is if ANOTHER ballot measure comes on board in the next year or so asking for MORE money for education, when we just had one existing ballot measure increased in the last election. Again, as always? It's about BETTER AUDITING of what is being spent AND WHERE...IF and WHEN they decide to take this seriously? I will certainly consider it, but I won't hold my "breath" on something that has not been well done, historically in the SRUSD. They really need to get the "message" - for the future of the district. Citizens just aren't going to blindly continue to shell out each and every time they put a measure on the ballot, when their accounting for monies spent is as poor as it is...

Posted by Judy, a resident of San Ramon, on Oct 18, 2011 at 10:25 am

As a public educator I agree that teachers are not paid nearly enough. However, does this mean that children in one San Ramon elementary school should not receive an equal number of instructional minutes as another? I would not mind a difference of a few hundred minutes, but 5000 is not a small amount. Where is the oversight?

Posted by James von Halle, a resident of San Ramon, on Oct 18, 2011 at 11:38 am

I repeat. If the schools had every dollar printed and every coin minted they would still cry poor to the over burdened tax payer.

Posted by JUDY, a resident of San Ramon, on Oct 18, 2011 at 2:11 pm

I must correct an error that I made on my previous two posts. The loss of instructional minutes for my daughters at Coyote Creek for the next three years is actually in excess of 15,000 hours....or over 40 school days....

So I ask the school district, how are you going to compensate my daughters for their loss of instruction?

Posted by Fact Checker, a resident of San Ramon, on Oct 18, 2011 at 6:44 pm

Judy, Please explain (with detailed calculations) how 15,000 hours equals 40 days. Include number of daughters, hours per school day etc... Not sure I follow your math, but I'm willng to see the details.

Posted by Judy, a resident of San Ramon, on Oct 18, 2011 at 10:02 pm

Fact checker: actually I undercalculated and used rough estimates. Each school day is a loss of 60 minutes....over 15,000 is for three years...5 hours daily at my daughter's school for k-2 and 6 hours for other nearest school...divided 15,000 by 360 (minutes per day)....

Other school districts require that all schools have the same amount of instructional minutes, so why does San Ramon allow each school to make that determination? Where is the equity in that decision?

The district is also aware of this inequity, but when questioned about it would not address the equity issue. They were more concerned about getting the teachers to agree to furlough days, resulting in a cut to instructional time for my daughter.