[BHS etree] SUPT: Tuesday, June 1, 7:30 p.m. Education Forum at Longfellow

[bhs at idiom.com]

CONTACT:  Michele Lawrence [mailto:mlawrence at berkeley.k12.ca.us]

To the Families of Students Attending Berkeley Public Schools:

I am writing to tell you of an important event regarding the Berkeley
public schools. This event will take place Tuesday, June 1 at 7:30 pm
in the Longfellow Middle School auditorium, 1500 Derby Street at
Sacramento Street.

Three years ago, when I accepted the position of Superintendent, I was
drawn to Berkeley as a community whose very name is synonymous with
education, a community with a wealth of resources and strong, ongoing
support for public education.

While the district has made strides in improving our children's
education in the past three years, much of our time has been spent
balancing our budget and building the business systems that will
provide the backbone of our services to children in the coming years.

In those same three years, the state of California's commitment to
education has wavered. At the university level, the Higher Education
Master Plan which has stood for more than forty years as an example of
California's promise to education has been broken. This year 7,600
students, including some from Berkeley High, were denied entrance to
the University of California system even as the Master Plan guaranteed
their acceptance.

For K-12 schools, for whom the majority of revenue comes from the
state, the funding situation is similarly bleak both now and in future
years. Nonetheless, the BUSD is finishing this school year and entering
the next with a precarious but balanced budget. Your School Board is
considering a two-year revenue measure which would allow us to lower
class sizes, enhance library and music programs--rebuilding some of the
programs lost to the past few years of budget cuts.

As we move forward we need to find longer-term solutions to our
educational needs. This is a two-part process. First we need to
determine what programs are essential to a quality education, and then
we need to look at all of our resources from top to bottom, inside and
out, and determine how to fund these programs.

Over the next year, working with the Berkeley Public Education
Foundation, I intend to engage the community in this discussion. In the
fall, I will convene a taskforce of educators, parents, and community
members to work with me to determine Berkeley's answers to these
questions.

On Tuesday, June 1 [the day after Memorial Day] an expert in the field
of determining the essentials of education and how to finance them is
coming to Berkeley. This will be an opportunity for all of us in
Berkeley to learn about the choices other communities have made in
securing their children's education as we embark on this task
ourselves.

At 7:30 pm on Tuesday, June 1 in the Longfellow Middle School
auditorium, Professor Lawrence Picus, will speak to the topic of
Funding Excellence in Public Schools: New Possibilities. Professor
Picus is the Director of the Center for Research in Education Financing
at the University of Southern California School of Education. He is a
leading figure in this movement to develop schools focused first on
delivering quality education for all. His reports for communities and
entire states have changed the way schools programs are funded,
delivered, and evaluated.

Through the sponsorship of the Berkeley Public Education Foundation,
this event is free and open to all. It is an opportunity to gain an
understanding of how Berkeley's schools can thrive despite the many
challenges.

I look forward to seeing you June 1.

Sincerely yours,

Michele Lawrence
Superintendent
Berkeley Unified School District


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