Food Revolution

Like JM Carr, I've been watching Food Revolution, but I've been a bit disappointed, as I am with all things regarding public education as reported in the media. There's not enough detail to help explain to the viewer the problems the Jamie's up against as he tries to change the nation's school lunch programs.

First of all, he's not the first chef to try. Alice Waters tried to set up school gardens in the Berkeley public schools, based on the Montessori model of hands-on learning, to encourage kids to recognize their food and to eat the healthy produce they grew. The program continues to expand, but Alice Waters herself has said that just having the kids grow the food was not enough to get them to try it. Now that she's set up a private foundation to support the edible schoolyard, it can be added to the public schools. But on its OWN, as the program was first developed, the Alice Waters experiment was a financial failure.

It's all about finances. Everything. The producers of the show don't even bother to explain the federal program, how it meshes with the "Free and Reduced Lunch Program", or what the difference is between a breakfast and a lunch program. Makes for good TV but very, very poor activism.

To begin to get my hands around this thing, I'll base this off of JMC's post from a few days ago: Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

From JMC:

I was intrigued to see the kids all eating breakfast at school. Despite the fact that the federal government mandates certain standards...school administration is state-based, and can vary widely. When I was a kid, back in the dark ages (80s and early 90s), breakfast at school was a relative rarity.

But the breakfast program is NOT a school-based program. Neither is the National Lunch Program. Both are administered BY the USDA. Yes, your department of agriculture designs, funds, and provides pre-packaged foods for the food in your school.

More detail on meal reimbursements later, but the breakfast program ends up costing the schools more money if a large number of students don't participate. (Reimbursement for lunch is different -- you can lose a lot of money very quickly in the breakfast program.) Since participation is dependent on parents getting up a bit earlier to get the kids there (as opposed to lunch where you have a captive audience), a lot of schools don't offer breakfast choice at all. If there's a substantial percentage of the school eligible for a free and reduced meal plan, then it can make sense to simply train the student body to expect to eat breakfast at school. When my eldest attended Berkeley public schools, the students came into the classroom, sat down, and ate a breakfast laid out for them at their desk. (Fruit, milk and cold cereal.) In our present district, none of the schools automatically provide breakfast to the entire student body.

Generally, a large school with a large "Title I" population (low socio-economic class) will provide breakfast to the entire population.

More from JMC:

Another contrast was the menu. Locally, the meal usually consisted of milk, eggs, breakfast meat, and/or oatmeal/grits and/or cold cereal. When Jamie walked into the school cafeteria and saw the kids eating “breakfast pizza”, I thought they were eating some sort of flatbread with eggs on it. No, it was regular pizza. And sweetened milk (strawberry or chocolate). I was horrified. It’s one thing to be a hung over college student eating cold pizza for breakfast, but pizza for breakfast every day? For a five, six, seven, eight year old? That is NOT healthy.

Menu development is where there is SOME local control. However, we now enter the new gray area of offer vs. serve. Never heard of offer vs. serve? It's a real problem.

Let's say you want the kids to eat a healthy breakfast of fruit and hot cereal. You plop it on the tray and then they eat it, right? Welllll, no. Not according to the 1980's USDA "Healthy Schools Meal Initiative." (In my opinion, it is this initiative that is creating most of the headache in school nutrition programs.)

You are no longer allowed to plop stuff on the tray and make the kids eat it. Kids have to be offered healthy choices. It's supposed to help kids balance their calories on their own and it destigmatizes the poor kids eating Chicken A La King slop from the wealthy kids eating a piece of whole fruit and a sandwich. Under Offer vs. Serve, ALL kids are encouraged to go through the lunch line, not just the poor kids.

Each child has an option of 4 to 5 choices (one meat, one fruit, etc., etc.) They must choose three, no more than two from the same category. STAFF MAY NOT REQUIRE a child choose this or that. STAFF MAY NOT REQUIRE that a child finish what is on their plate, and the child may not go back through the line to get an option they passed up before. (This link summarizes the rules pretty nicely: An explanation from a high school's website)

This creates an insane amount of waste. The USDA meal plan does include way too much bread and a fairly small amount of protein, but imagine how annoying it is to find the trash bin full, day after day, of food that the kids had no intention of eating in the first place. Over time, this creates a sense in the lunch room that it's better to give the kids foods they are going to eat. Also, you have to offer a choice. It cannot be "Today is roast chicken. Eat it or go hungry." There has to be a choice of this vs. that, and all the choices have to mesh together in such a way that the meal nutrition guidelines are met.

When I was on the board, I looked over a sample of kid's purchases during middle and high school snack. In a three week period, there was 1 purchase of a side salad, 6 purchases of fruit, and daily purchases of bagels w/cream cheese and pizza along with a purchase of ranch dressing. (Kids dip the pizza into ranch -- that's their choice.) So everyday the schools packed the snack carts with fresh salad, so they could show that they had offered it to the kids, and every two days they threw the fresh salads away. They CANNOT take the option of the pizza away without substituting an equal option of bread, vegetables and protein exchanges. Hard to find something that's cheap enough to fit the guidelines in that situation, so the pizza stayed. (The individual packages of ranch dressing went away though.)

The other bit that's not being addressed in these discussions is cost. Once you have a National Lunch program, the prices you can charge for your meals are directly linked to the federal subsidies for your meals. Free and Reduced lunches can cost no more than X to manufacture and full price lunches can be priced at no more than 50 cents to a dollar more than the cost of the Free and Reduced lunch cost. School lunches are about $2.50 because you are capped at about $1.75 in food cost for the Free and Reduced lunch. Even from the federal government, milk takes up about 50 to 60 cents of that $1.75.

A seventy cent meal which includes lots of fresh produce is a tricky thing to pull off.

AND, there's the added issue that many districts are prohibited from producing food in bulk. Small district, small school kitchens -- transportation of hot food stuffs from central kitchen creates health code problems. (Yeah, I know it's stupid, but a few districts in my area have stopped offering spaghetti sauce and chili because they can't keep the vats of sauce at the right temp -- outdated equipment and no $ to upgrade.)

How do you make a 70 cent meal? Never fear! The USDA will provide food for you and will coordinate the food with their own menu plans. Government cheese, government canned beans, government frozen product, government breads and meats. All for pennies.

Our central kitchen is HUGE and is mostly made up of freezers and dry storage space. There is not a single saucepan in site. No one's used the burner or the steam cauldron in years. It's all hotel pans, racks of them, for heating up chicken nuggets and frozen beef patties of the approved nutritional content.

In terms of shifting the program over to healthier eating, there's one other little fly in the ointment. If you want to buy really cheap beans and really cheap meat and really cheap cheese to produce a healthy bean burrito at your central kitchen, that's fine. You just have to place your order in the form of "chits" one year in advance. Over the next year you send in your chits and the government sends you your allotment of frozen ground beef. Make a mistake in ordering? Decide to try a new menu? Too bad, there's no ordering until next January. It's not a matter of blowing your budget by ordering from restaurant supply houses. If the meal costs more than 70 cents to produce, you've violated federal guidelines and you can't serve it.

Professional chefs know how to manage food costs and how to produce healthy cheap meals. Mostly they make everything they can in house and make one sauce that can go on three or four different dishes. Make stuff in bulk. Experiment. Be creative.

School lunch personnel have been locked into a system where it ends up being easier to use the prepackaged junk produced by the government to meet the needs of the government nutritional and budgetary requirements.

Our schools have very little money left to pay teachers and support staff, or to implement innovative programs. Proper nutrition is critical. However, the USDA has created a completely counterproductive and ultimately unworkable system. It's not the school's fault. It's not about local choice; it's about the federal government's willingness to feed poor people food waste and call it nutrition.

I wish, I wish, I wish, someone would do a "Food Nation" on the USDA's guidelines and meal plans. Horrible stuff.

Getting all misty-eyed?

I went to a school-district-sponsored community budget forum last night. Yes, yet again we are out of money and facing big cuts. I haven't been paying a LOT of attention to school budget stuff, and I always learn the stuff better when it's presented to me in person, so I toddled down to the elementary school to stand in the back and soak it up.

There was a City Council member there -- he whispered in my ear, "Getting all misty-eyed for this stuff?"

"No way."

"Smart lady. These people scare me."

"Staff? Or public?"

"Geez, no. The school mommies. They'll rip your heart from your chest in a moment."

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When I was on the board (03-07) we had a budget of about 33 million which went down to 31 million at one point. We learned later that the 31 million dollar figure was never an accurate number, so we were mostly at 33. It was rough. We had no director of Human Resources, Curriculum, Maintenance, or Technology. We had no accountant, no payroll technician. (These folks need to sign off on each other's work -- since we didn't have them we had one person doing the work and signing off that she had audited it. Ummm.) We had no counselors at the middle school, half the recommended amount at the high school and we were missing I think one or two VP's at the high school. Oh yeah, at one point we didn't even HAVE a principal at the high school. Seems to me that 33 million was not quite enough money to run the district. At 31 things were getting stupid.

Total budget now is around 36 million, just shy of 37. Lots of cuts came down last year, and now the district has to trim an additional 2.4 million this year. I dunno. I must be a mean person, but I don't have a tons of sympathy for the levels of drama I saw last night. Cutting 2.4 from 36 is NOT the same story as cutting 2.4 from 33. Take a chill pill, folks.
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Xenophobes were out in force last night. "How many kids from other towns do we let in to our schools? They don't pay taxes here. We shouldn't let them in. They cause behavior problems."

Superintendent: "Out of 5,000 kids we currently have 124 interdistrict transfers. To come here, they have to apply to their home district to be released, and they we have to decide if we'll take them. They have to sign a behavior contract and a GPA maintenance contract. If they don't fulfill those requirements, we can negate the transfer. So they DON'T cause behavior problems and we're very pleased to have them here. If they weren't here, we wouldn't have the money they bring with them."

This did NOTHING to appease our hometown racists. Not a thing.

Other controversy was that at a meeting that I watched on television, the school board voted to adopt a policy which would offer health care coverage to school board members. Also the school board voted to give itself a $240/month stipend. All the current school board members are self-employed, and are having difficulties getting to all the committee meetings and traveling, etc. I acutally saw TWO meetings where the health care coverage was discussed, on TV, publicly. Both times the entire board said that none of the current members would take health care because they get it elsewhere, but that they wanted the policy enacted to bring this board into parity with other government agencies in the county. So basically, it costs the district nothing. The stipend is there, but they lowered it from $300 to $240 this year. Still amounts to very little.

HOWLING from the audience. "Why weren't we TOLD?" The superintendent answered that it was at a public meeting. Not good enough. "How can we KNOW what you are going to be talking about? I volunteer ALL my time here at this school and I don't get paid! It's not FAIR!"

Jesus Freaking Christ. It's a public meeting that's televised. What did you want? An invitation? The agendas are on the website. The minutes are on the website. If I had had a tomato in my pocket, I would have thrown it at the woman.
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I did put up on the white piece of paper my two ideas for economizing, the same two I put forward every other year. So maybe they'll get discussed by the board, since no one else in the room put anything up there. Yay me. Woo. I participated.

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Not misty-eyed.

I heart Mr. Stewart

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Born Identity
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Joke of the Day

OK, so you all know my husband is a butcher.

But even so, this video from Wonkette is the funniest meat-related thing I have seen in a while (some parts blurred for the faint of heart).

Palin at Thanksgiving

Help me. I'm still laughing.

I especially love the guy in the background. "You sure? Go ahead? Really?! Ok then."

A little something to keep me going through tomorrow evening.

Not only is this one totally stuck in my head, but somehow it feels as if it relates to tomorrow's election? Or hope? Or fear? Or something deep. I think

Remember that time someone called me "post-abortive"?

You may or may not remember this, but about a million years ago I posted something about how I didn't really like looking at ultrasound pictures of other people's unborn babies because it reminded me too much of abortion protesters' signs. And then a wack job came on my blog and called me "post-abortive." Y'all remember that?

Well, apparently this level of discourse has hit the presidential election. National Review says that the reason we liberal wimmens don't like Sarah Palin is because we, and all of us who agree with us, are "post-abortive". Or suffering from collective guilt from knowing those who are post-abortive. I'm getting dizzy from this line of logic.

I swear, this election is boiling my brain.

I read the original article at National Review a number of times, but I couldn't quite parse the nuttiness. I prefer Wonkette's synopsis ever so much more. Go read more about your collective guilt at Wonkette.

If you're at all interested in this Ayers thing

then you should read this article from EdWeek explaining the original Annenberg grants in Chicago. It was not an attempt to inculcate children with radiacal philosophies, as Idiot Dick Morris has suggested, but:

In fact, the project undertaken in Chicago as part of a high-profile national initiative reflected mainstream thinking among education reformers. The Annenberg Foundation’s $49.2 million grant in the city focused on three priorities: encouraging collaboration among teachers and better professional development; reducing the isolation between schools and between schools and their communities; and reducing school size to improve learning....

And the creation of small schools has continued as a reform strategy nationwide, most recently with major funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Wow. I'd hate for such a radical idea as smaller schools and increasing school and community involvement to become widespread. What a terrible idea. Sigh.

Another longer quote, discussing the present day interpretation of the various projects and how off base they are.

The proposal was backed by letters of support to the Annenberg Foundation from Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar, a Republican, local education school deans, the superintendent of the Chicago public schools, and the heads of local foundations.

“Part of the work was to build a strong community around schools,” said Ms. Hallett, who is now the director of Grow Your Own Illinois, a Chicago-based teacher-recruitment project. “Most of the schools had been isolated for a long time.”

To manage the Annenberg grant and raise the necessary matching funds, the Chicago project was required by the Annenberg Foundation to have a board of directors.

Critics of Sen. Obama assert that Mr. Ayers must have played a role in his selection as the chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Stanley Kurtz, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Ethics and Public Policy Center, wrote in a Sept. 23 opinion essay in The Wall Street Journal that it was an “unsettled question” how “a former community organizer fresh out of law school could vault to the top of a new foundation.”

Those involved in selecting Mr. Obama, however, say it was precisely that background that attracted them to him.

Mr. Obama, then 33, was an associate at the law firm Davis, Miner, Barnhill and Galland and a member of the board of the Chicago-based Joyce Foundation. He also served, as Mr. Ayers later did with him, on the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago, which had financed the Developing Communities Project, a South Side community-organizing project that Mr. Obama ran from 1985 to 1988 before leaving to attend Harvard Law School.

He brought that organizing perspective with him to the new education project, telling the Chicago Tribune in a June 1995 article about the Chicago Annenberg Challenge: “If we’re really going to change things in this city, it’s going to start at the grassroots level and with our children.”

Go read the rest of the article. It's very good.

Reading habits

Sarah Palin, when asked what newspapers she reads, responded, "All of them."

There are so many snarky comments rumbling around in my head, but none of them seem quite up to the stupidity of that phrase. All of them? Really?

So that means that you read my local "Herald", a paper so awful that there are more pages devoted to "Church notices" than there are to news. A paper that prints letters to the editor on a half page on Thursdays, but only if they've been received by Tuesday at noon, and then doesn't print all of them (maybe five on any topic) because they don't have enough room. Yeah, that one. The paper that once quoted me as saying that all Kindergarten parents should help their kids with homework. (NO. Kindergarten parents should help their kids get used to doing homework, if the kid gets some.)

Along with my local "Herald" there's the more reputable local paper, the "Herald". Yes, it's confusing. Then there's the Contra Costa Times, the Examiner, and the Chronicle. Then the smaller independent papers, like the Alameda Sun and the East Bay Express.

I haven't even hit the national papers yet.

What an insanely uneducated comment. All of them.

How many websites do you read? All of them.

How may library books have you read? All of them.

The most frustrating type of ignorance is what I call willful stupidity. I'm proud of the fact that I'm dumber than you, because it proves my genuine down-home truthiness, and I won't bother to learn anything, because that would make me less of a person than I am now.

I ran into willful stupidity, or obstinate ignorance, All The Time in school board meetings. It was deeply shocking the first three or four times I encountered it. Now it just makes the top of my head blow off.

Isn't the whole POINT of public libraries and public schools that people thought that you would become a BETTER person if only you enhanced your innate qualities through education? So much for respecting the Founding Fathers and that whole Age of Enlightenment thingy-ma-bob.

National Politics

Is it true that Sarah Palin's husband has been a member of a secessionist party for a decade? And that she addressed their conventions?

What the hell. I thought people vetted these candidates. Who the hell is in charge of this McCain campaign anyway? Too weird.

Mr. Obama is Mr. Darcy?

Maureen Dowd says in today's New York Times that Obama, with his proud and reserved manner is America's Mr. Darcy, and we are all Elizabeth, intrigued but feeling rejected by his prideful demeanor.

I can sort of see what she's saying, but it sort of doesn't fit either.

Miss Bennet doesn't like Mr. Darcy because he seems to not like her. She actually likes him until she overhears him reject her as being too rough for his fine person. Of course what she doesn't know is how much he admires her, etc. etc., nor does she understand how very stiff he is in company because he hasn't mastered the art of conversation and idle chatter.

OK, we all know that. But, uh, how does Obama fit into THAT? I don't think her analogy is apt.

Obama has always loved country (Miss Bennet), but she hasn't really been paying too much attention to him until recently. You don't go into local organizing unless you *really* like politics, believe me. Maybe now Miss Bennet sees him as being aloof? Too prideful? But is that really what's going on? Or do we see him now as acting aloof because all the pundits are saying that he's not blue collar enough.

I don't think Austen is going to work for this election.

If you are going to propose Barack Obama as some sort of hero in a well known Victorian book, then I'd go for either Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights. The brooding hero with Deep Thoughts on his mind which occupy him while all the girls want to do is twitter away somewhere at Thrushcross Grange, discussing table linens and inheritances.

But see, even that doesn't work. I have a hard time seeing Obama thumping across the moors getting his feet all wet in the peat. And pining for ghosts? No. I don't think so.

This is the problem with allegory -- it's hard to get it right. Better just to deal with the person as we have him.

I prefer Jon Stewart's take on the whole "Is he too arrogant and prideful?" meme: Of course he's arrogant. He's running for president of the United States! Presumptive leader of the Free World! Yes! He's arrogant! So's the other guy.

Calm Down or Else

The New York Times today published an article about how public schools are routinely and illegally restraining children with behavior problems.

I hope this works without needing registration to view: Calm Down or Else by Benedict Carey.

It all seems quite familiar.

Books and conversations and politcs and stuff

I'm reading this: Asperger's Syndrome and Difficult Moments: Practical Solutions for Tantrums, Rage and Meltdowns. I don't know if it's helpful or harmful to read it. Pervasive theme of the book is that once the child has experienced a rage, there is nothing anyone can do but to ride it out. The teachable moments occur as the child is building up to a rage, or during the recovery period after a rage. The fact that an Asperger's child has modeled the correct behavior and response to stress in the comfortable atmosphere of the clinician's office does not mean that the child is able to access that same information when they are under stress. Many "aspies" have excellent memory, but items in their memory are not easily accessible. I know this. I've described this over and over. Yet I still get phone calls saying, "Saul's upset. Boy oh boy is Saul upset. He's more upset than I've ever seen him."

"OK. What was happening just before he got upset?"

"Oh. I don't know. He just suddenly got upset."

And then the rest of the conversation is all about what behaviors he displayed WHILE he was upset, what punishments should be considered for his behavior, how very scary he can become if he cannot be calmed, etc. (Hint. He cannot be calmed. Deal with it. Here's a tip --- you need to work on preventing him from becoming upset in the first place. Remember? We talked about this a while ago. Remember? Hmmm? Lessening his anxiety and increasing his self-esteem comes from moderating his environment so that he is less likely to explode. Right? So why am I expected to lay the disapproval and consequences on like a trowel when you have failed to prevent another outburst?)

Reading this book, I'm stuck every few pages saying to my self, "Uh huh. Yup. Absolutely. No question about it. I know this. Why don't the professionals at the school know this?" It's affirmative to read that certain techniques are state of the art, appropriate, and respectful. And in the same breath, it's infuriating to know that the school thinks that these techniques would be inappropriate for him because he's...because.... Um, where is the because there? Because they are hard to apply? No, not really.

Do they think he's faking?

Most of it is that they really have no training in autism -- Their knowledge is all in the Oprah Winfrey version of Kanner's Autism: one day my kid was adorable and the next he couldn't speak. "I have this tear-jerking video right here to show you what he could have been." I have every possible sympathy for the heartache that these parents have gone through and continue to go through. However, that's not my child.

My child doesn't LOOK disabled. His face has the correct muscle tone. His eyes are the "right" shape. He doesn't flap his hands, tap his feet, or have tics. He has good muscle control and hand-eye coordination. He hears fine. He can carry on conversations. He just interprets what he hears in a very different manner than you do. Parallel conversations are the norm in our house.

I was talking to a friend this morning whose son is only five -- he's just like Saul. I had sent her a letter from a parent who was writing me to complain about all "those disruptive children" in the classroom. She and I are planning to push for a different elementary program, but first I wanted her to see what the general education parents are being told about special ed children by their very own general education teachers. Her response was interesting.

"It's racism. Poor and simple," she said. "If my child looked different, then he'd be patted on the head in a condescending manner and all the adults could congratulate themselves on their own charity in *allowing* that child to participate. If you look different, there's a different standard.

"My child looks the same as the others but has a different brain. Suddenly, there's no charity any more. If it doesn't make you feel good to be understanding, then there's no point, is there?

"I could explain to these people again and again and again that a doctor has diagnosed my child as having a developmental disorder, something wrong with his brain or nervous stem, and they will not give him the slack to struggle with his disability. He has to be pitch-perfect every day. If he isn't, then the teacher gossips to the room mom about how difficult her day is. And that room mom goes and tells four other parents about the child who is *allowed* to act up in class. If my child were drooling, they'd love having him there. They only want sweet idiots in the class. Not the ones that could really boost their test scores if you could just stop talking at them long enough to give them some room to breathe."

Wow. She catches on quick.

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I got my first real "We need you on the school board" recruitment call yesterday. From a person who really wants me to be on the City Council, but who first wants me to run in a special election for a school board seat this summer, because then I could get some stuff done and run for City Council in November of 09 as a sitting school board member.

Are you fucking insane?

Did you notice that I got exactly nothing accomplished while I was up there because no one wanted to play ball with me? Why oh why oh WHY would I run for City Council from an active seat on the School Board? Sitting the special election out and then running for a city seat actually makes more sense, but hello? I don't want to run for city council. Zoning ordinances. Water reclamation rights. Public safety. Street lighting. How does one stay awake during a meeting like that?

And if you're so all fired to get a smart woman on the city council, why don't YOU run? If you want someone to run against the most recent school board appointee whom you don't like because the appointee said that she was using the school board as a stepping stone to city council, then, uh, why do you think it's a good idea for me to do the exact same thing? OR, why don't YOU run for school board and leave me the hell out of it?

Ugh. People. Most of the time I don't really like 'em too much.

I have my sticker

I've visited the polls and I have my little red, white and blue sticker: "I Voted!"

I had a hard time deciding on the Democratic candidates. I really want to vote a woman into the White House. Both my Senators are women, and they do a great job. My Assemblywoman is, uh, woman, hence the name. My Representative to Congress is a man, and he's a good guy. Overall, I like knowing that my political representatives are well respected amongst their colleagues, and the fact that they are women holding those levels of respect is great.

I so wanted to be able to vote for Hillary. But the truth is, I don't really like her or trust her. If I could, I'd vote Bill Clinton back in, but I"m not going to vote for his wife because I like him. That would be disrespectful to her.

But I'm not totally convinced that Obama's my guy. I don't know who he's going to surround himself with. The person he chooses as Chief of Staff and Press Secretary and all those other "West Wing" (God, I loved that show) characters makes a big difference in HOW he is able to implement his grand ideas.

Push comes to shove though, I couldn't fill in the circle for Hilary. Just couldn't do it. So, Obama got my vote.

Please be a good choice. OK? Thanks.

What the...? I'll need a minute here.

Those of you who have followed my political career so far know that there's a guy who was on the Board before me who encouraged me to run, helped me campaign, and introduced me to politics. I sometimes call him "The Prez". For this post I'll just call him Derek.

Derek is a local millionaire, respected by some, hated by others. Has a reputation for finagling behind the scenes, although I didn't see TOO much of this when I was serving with him.

He was on the Board for two years when I ran for a seat. Those first two years we were definitely in the minority. It was bad. It was ugly. In 2005 he made noises that he wasn't going to run for re-election, but eventually he did, and got elected along with two other similar-minded people. We went from a 3-2 minority to a 4-1 majority overnight. It was cool for a while.

Then all hell started breaking loose. We had a fight with the Superintendent, and then I started fighting with other Board members, then the one Board member in the minority suddenly stepped down, leaving behind her a nasty letter to the papers. Derek and I started fighting a lot. We went from having lunch to being completely incommunicado in between meetings. Snarls. Glares. Uck.

This summer I decided not to run for re-election. My son was talking up all my energy, my daughters needed some attention, and the nastiness and disrespect from the Board and from the PUBLIC, who thought I wasn't fighting with Derek at all, just added up to a yucky mess.

The day after Christmas Derek suddenly stepped down. A quick note to the paper, a short meeting with the (new) Superintendent, and a refusal to answer all phone calls. Total surprise.

Today an article was published in the paper that he's plead guilty to tax evasion and under his plea agreement, will be serving five months in jail followed by house arrest.

Holy KEErist. Never saw THAT coming.

Guess that explains why he was distracted over the past year. Guess that might explain some of the nastiness, or eagerness to fight.

But jeez. Jail? Wait? What year did you screw up your taxes? Huh. Look at that.

You know what, counting on my fingers, and looking up the window of audits on corporations, I realize now that you were probably under investigation the whole damned time I knew you.

Wow. I'll need a week or so to put the last four years of my life into perspective.

Further comments on this matter

Yesterday I wrote:

I will not post again about local politics
I will not post again about local politics
I will not post again about local politics
I will not post again about local politics

And Angela James wrote in comments:

I LOVE your posts on the school board politics. I hope you don't feel you can't post them. They're what makes your blog your blog, just as much as the posts about your children!

I started to respond in comments, but it ended up being a post of itself. Here you go:

I dunno. I feel as if the political stuff is confusing, as I'm always using pronouns and it's never totally clear who did what and when. And the posts are long. (OK, I don't really write short posts now, do I?)

I guess because it's something that deeply affects me, I get all passionate about it, and that's good to write about and for others to read. But on the other hand, I feel sort of embarrassed from time to time for getting this hyped up about small fry stuff in a small fry town.

At this point I have not watched a SINGLE presidential debate. There have only been about four thousand at this point. I understand a lot of the political maneuvering and spin doctoring of the polls, and the "Hillary Effect" in New Hampshire. I could be (should be?) writing about that. But I don't, and I'm still sure that people have a hard time following what it is about this school board stuff that just wriggles in under my skin and gets my blood pumping.

I've now had three people ask me to run for City Council or to at least serve on a City committee or appointed commission. Even the City Commission on Public Governance ("Sunshine laws"). I'm smart, I know what I'm talking about, I'd be an asset to the community, I'd be able to dig into some interesting issues, I'd have a public forum to express my views and influence others.

Does not interest me at all.

It should. What's wrong with me?

Writing on the Blackboard

I will not post again about local politics
I will not post again about local politics
I will not post again about local politics
I will not post again about local politics


I can't imagine that any of you care at this point, but I just have to get this down somewhere.

The Board that I just left, which was dedicated to open governance and Sunshine Ordinances and public input, after being formed in reaction to the Old Board appointing an unqualified person to be Superintendent in the middle of the night with no warning or opportunities for public comment, an action which caused much public unrest and swept some baddies out of office, just appointed a new board member in an underhanded manner with no warning or opportunities for public comment.

Ye gads, kids. You can't go around doing what the baddies did just because it's Easier and More Efficient. Some thoughts:

• It all reminds me why I don't want to be on the Board anymore.
• I'm stupidly thankful for the very supportive and wonderful conversations over the last few days with people who I knew generally supported me when I was up there, but who had no idea what I was going through over the past two years.
  
• The same set of folks saw this going down and called me to find out what my read was, and within a moment of my trying to stay above the fray and not say anything, they read between the lines and were on the full twisted story like gum on a shoe. Smart folks.
  
• I say this as a feminist, but I'm not sure women are ready to be public officials, or at least school board members. I'm losing all sorts of respect for others of my gender.
• The Board appointed a woman to the Board because her letter of interest made the female Board Members cry when they read it. The new member has never been to a meeting, nor written a letter on any issue, nor called any Board member, nor served on any district committee in the six years that I've been following this. But she can make someone cry when she describes her dedication to the schools. That was her qualification. Making someone cry. Stick a knife between my eyes right freaking now.
• The highs, the lows, the rages, the flutters of outrage in my chest. I discover they can come back in a moment, just by watching a one minute conversation on the TV screen.

There is a silver lining.

One thing I was sure I'd miss, that would damage me in some way by not running for the board again was exercising my mind in conversation and research, as well as meeting new and engaging people. But out of this debacle comes an interest from the candidates who were passed over to get together to talk about education, to share ideas from other districts, to share arcane knowledge about education law or policy, and to do it in a sort of a "book group"/seminar/roundtable sort of thing. Maybe once a month? Each person pick a topic, educate the others. Talk about the system and how to improve it?

I love it.

Thank you, Ramon, for being a mensch, finding a way through this muck and coming up with an educational, social, and ultimately (for Ramon) political solution to all this. I always liked that part best. Sitting around and talking about education and goals and plans and ideas. Someone else can go to the meetings.

He's not THAT important! Sheesh!

I was in the Superintendent's office yesterday dropping off some paperwork. But her assistant told me she was out of the office.

"That's cool. Will she be back later on? Or is she out for a while?"

"I don't know. She's actually attending a taping of the Today Show."

"Here?"

"Our High School students were involved in a project that NBC is covering, so they sent a Today Show crew out to film it."

"That's so exciting!"

"Yeah, but the funniest thing was that someone else asked a few minutes ago if she was in, and I said she was at the Today Show, and she said, 'Because the School Board President resigned?'"

Oh good lord, people. Get a grip. Get OVER yourself. People in the Bay Area don't know where this town is, let alone have an opinion on this Evil Emperor in our midst. I hardly think the Today Show is going to swoop down to report on our gossip.



In other news, Saul is a bit closer to getting medication -- his psychiatric appointment went well. Phebe is going to ace her spelling restest, Neo is in a perpetual grumpy mood to top all previous grumpy moods, and Hobbes (the dog) and Bagheera (the cat) are terrified or exhilarated by each other. I have to get a picture posted of Bagheera. He is the official slayer of socks. Pounces on them and then flips them over his head up into the air. Kinda cute, really.

I am not a citizen of France

I got a call the other night from a guy who wants to apply for the vacancy on the Board. He had come to my house over the holidays for a party and had asked a few pointed questions about the Board which signaled his intent. (As soon as someone asks you, "So how much of a time commitment is taken up with being on the Board?" then you KNOW without a shadow of a doubt that they are considering being on the Board. Someone who is just faintly curious tends to pose the questions as: "How much time do you spend on Board things?" I discovered this difference in focus a few years ago, and it's been proven right every single time. If the word "you" is in the sentence, they are curious. If the subject's completely general, then they are thinking of themselves.)

This guy called a few days ago, all upset, to say that the new president of the Board was angry at him. What now can he do to ensure his appointment to the Board if she's annoyed? Umm. Dude. Like, nothing. It's an appointment, not a public election. Apologize to her for pissing her off and move on. Hope that she gets over it before the appointment decision.

(Thing is, she won't get over it. The new prez is the Board member I used to be friends with before she got on the board two years ago. As soon as she got on, she insisted on serving on the policy committee with me, to prevent the appointment of another Board member, and blew the whole thing off, leaving me to do all the editing and refusing to even read the edits when I had finished them. I called her on it, and she got angry, and eventually she said, "Well, it sounds as if you don't respect me as a Board member." And my response ended the friendship completely. "You don't read the Board packets, you never research anything, and you completely gave up any interest in tackling a project that you committed yourself to. You're engaging in negotiations and you won't read the employment contracts. No. I don't respect that." [That sound you hear in the background is Taps playing over the death of our relationship.] Once she gets pissed off, she never gets over it. She's still trying to block teacher appointments to teacher committees for people who disagreed with her in public on a minor topic from two years ago. Stop being personal and get over yourself. Sheesh.)

So, loving a touch of gossip, I asked my friend what had happened to get her pissed at him. Well, he's been talking to all the Board members, asking questions, and trying to get them to say they'll support his appointment. Nothing unusual.

He sent an email to one Board member saying that he was pretty sure that Board members X and Y also supported his appointment. Nothing unusual.

The recipient of the email forwarded it (NO!! NEVER FORWARD EMAILS!!) to the prez, saying that he thought this was the best guy for the job. Bad Board Member.

The Brown Act, an open governance law, says that all decisions made by a publicly elected body must be made in public. Therefore, there can be no conversations or emails by the majority of the Board on any topic which the Board may later vote on outside of a publicly noticed, fully public meeting, where the public may comment on the item under discussion.

So when the Board member gets an email which telegraphs the intent of the majority of the Board, he's supposed to write the person back, saying that he cannot make up his mind before the meeting, and that he's not supposed to know the intent of a majority, so we cannot continue this discussion. That email really should be CC'ed to the Political Fair Practices Commission and perhaps County Counsel just to cover his ass. County Counsel may ask the Board member who received the communication to announce at a public meeting that he engaged in ex parte communication before the meeting. But usually that's the end. A public remedy for an honest mistake is fine.

If the Board member forwards that email to anyone else on the Board, then the original Board member has violated the Brown Act, and the one who receives the forward and reads its contents has technically violated the Brown Act as well. (Yeah, I know. Just by reading it.) Again, there are remedies to this. You basically announce publicly that an error has occurred, try to relevel the playing field for the other candidates and for the public, and move on.

What the prez did though, was really idiotic.

She called the possible candidate and told him that HE had violated the Brown Act and that no Board member could now speak to him.

Oy yoi yoi.

Idiot Person Posing As President, the PUBLIC is not bound by the Brown Act, only the Board. The public can communicate with whomsoever they wish. It's actually encouraged! No, really! It's up to the elected officials to keep their noses clean. (Did you report the member of your Board to the authorities? Why no, you did not. Oh great.)

I told my friend on the phone, "Look. Stop talking to the Board members right now. You have their support; what more do you need to say? Apologize profusely to the president and then see how it goes. Go talk to the Superintendent to learn about some issues in the District so you can be knowledgeable when they interview you. It'll be fine."

"But what about the Brown Act? Is the Attorney General going to call me or something?"

"No. No. First of all, the AG is only for criminal matters, not governmental. No one's going to be calling you. You did nothing wrong. Remember, you are not a citizen of France. You are not bound by French laws. Who knows? You could be breaking three or four French laws a day. Who cares? The Board is bound by the Brown Act, not you."

"Oh. OK. That makes sense. Boy, she really is a bully, isn't she?"

"Uh. There's no response to that which will be at all polite."

"Is that why you're not putting up your name?"

"Uh. Let's just say that I'm done being a citizen of France and leave it at that. OK?"

-----------

A few days before this I got a call from the VP at the Middle School asking me to please put in my application because the employees were worried about the lack of expertise on the Board. Oh, jeez. I wouldn't mind going up there and being appreciated, but I think my passport's truly expired.


4pm Edited to Add: Duh. I was correcting myself as I was writing until one statement ended up being over-corrected and then wrong. Double Duh. Most people talk about the District Attorney when they get all freaky about politics. The DA is involved with criminal matters and therefore has little or no jurisdiction over Brown Act violations. It's the Attorney General who's in charge of political malfeasance. When I was on the Board there was always some crank "reporting" us to the DA -- I had a lot of Scooby Doo-like conversations with the DA over the four year term. "Woo? You wrant Wrat?" "Nothing. Never mind." "Attorney General? Wroo? District Attorney? Wroo?"

So when I was talking to my friend he was talking about the DA calling him, but then when I blogged I corrected him to say that the AG was the one who...oh, whatever. It hardly matters.

My Irony Meter Just Broke

OK, so you all may remember that I am no longer on the School Board. While I was trying to make the decision whether or not to run again, I got a lot of pressure from my political mentor, the Prez of the Board, to sit the campaign out.

At the very last minute, I started reconsidering and asked him to please call me so that we could discuss whether I should pull papers at the elections office on the day of the deadline. That morning, he called me and really put the screws on that it wasn't a good idea for me to pull papers, as he had already promised endorsements to two other people, and he couldn't go back on those endorsements, and it would look odd for me to be hanging in the wind without his endorsement. I ended up in tears over it, but said that yeah, I was too high strung these days with the stress over my son to focus on a campaign. So I bowed out.

What ticked me off was when I learned that No One else had pulled papers. So, uh, where were those people you had lined up? Hmm? There ended up being no election whatsoever for lack of opposition. But really, I'm OK with stepping off.

I'm not really OK with the way the rest of the Board has been cavalier about saying good bye to me though. No one thanked me for my service, stuff like that. But OK.

Yesterday I was on the phone with my mother and the call waiting clicked in. It was the local paper: "Do you have any comment on the Board President's letter of resignation?"

WHAT?!?!?

"OK, uh, I have my mother on the other line. Let me call you right back."

Turns out the Prez gave his letter of resignation to the Superintendent yesterday morning and then delivered it to the media with no further discussion. In the letter he thanks the Board for their service, cites lack of time to devote to school board issues due to family and professional obligations and ends the letter by thanking me for my service along with him.

Uh. Gee. Don't know what to think. Sorta gobsmacked really. The whole thing just feels like a con somehow. I told him a number of times that I wanted to be president, but he made it clear that he wasn't giving it up. OK. Fine. But just after I left he nominated another Board Member to be president, so he was OK setting it aside for her, but not for me. And he made a big deal that I needed to serve out my term right to the bitter end of December 6 and not step down on November 1, as I had planned, because "it would cause a media storm" and would "make it look like I was leaving for a reason." So I didn't attend a few meetings, and I left on Dec 6.

But then HE steps down a few weeks later? With letters to the media? WHAT?

So now the Board has to appoint a replacement. I could throw my name in, and possibly get a seat and be able to serve without having to run a campaign, but I don't think I'm really up for it all. Feels fishy. And it doesn't feel as if they'd appoint me up there anyway. Feels like more bad stuff is on its way and I'm not up for that sort of fighting.

So I'm heading back to my committee work. But there's a lot of headshaking going on in my town these days.

Feedback

Why ask for feedback if you are only going to respond by vehemently defending your original idea?

Oh.

You wanted PRAISE. Got it. I'll make a note.




Here's a tip. If you want praise, then you need to say, "I've worked really hard on this idiotic animated logo for the website. Top Priority For Me!! I love the idea of the person in silhouette juggling things which could be navigation buttons or just be symbols that turn up later on the navigation menu or I Don't know, but look! He's juggling! Isn't that what we all do in our lives with our children? Juggle? We've decided that she, or maybe it's a he, (hee hee!) needs to be standing on a compass because we'll need more navigation buttons than the original hearts, stars, and moons. Please don't question us about the Lucky Charms and how they relate to the compass. We've got it all figured out and it will all make sense when the website is up and running. I just wanted to show you guys so you knew that I'm hard at work on it. OK?"

This causes everyone in the room to say, "Awww. Cute logo. What a great job." If you say, "Here's the logo in it's earliest stage. We'd like some feedback from the group," you are going to have to prepare yourself for the people (not just ME) in the room to ask questions about why we are advertising a breakfast cereal on the website for a Special Ed support group and expressing discomfort with the professionalism of such a design. I'm sorry that was so hard for you, my dear. Maybe fighting with your fellow voting members about how wonderful it all is isn't your best plan. You know? Maybe you don't.

Man, that was uncomfortable.