CUSD Update, August 24

Those driving by Newhart Middle School this week saw an interesting sight in the parking lot adjacent to La Paz Road. Neighbors said the parking lot was being used to assemble the new modular building – a two-story portable. Workmen were putting the framework together, and passersby were excited about activity of any kind. One person said, “Maybe they’re working on the portables or painting them.” When a new coat of paint causes excitement, it says a lot about the condition of the school.

In progress this week is moving the first story of the modular building into place and stacking the second story on top of it. The structure will likely be coated with a stucco-like material to make it look more like a permanent building. Other portables had to be moved to the playground area to make room for the two-story portable.

As it turns out, these “portable” units aren’t so portable after all. Quite a few of the Newhart “portables” destined to be moved a matter of yards couldn’t withstand the trip. They fell apart and had to be hauled off. Consider that these crumbling portables were classrooms a couple months ago.

CUSD officials say the student population at Newhart will be reduced this coming school year because some students will attend Hankey. With Newhart so overcrowded, going from 1,800-plus to 1,600-plus still won’t be a reasonable number.

Those who attended the CUSD board meeting on Aug. 13 continue to remark about some of the public comments during the agenda item on whether or not the district would pay the legal fees of former administrators James Fleming and Susan McGill.

One of the parents on Aug. 13 said from the public microphone the old trustees couldn’t be trusted. She said one of the new trustees, Anna Bryson, also couldn’t be trusted because she voted with the old ones on controversial issues, including passing a budget with a negative impact on students. Bryson was so flustered after being publicly criticized that she spent five minutes defending herself instead of discussing the agenda item.

A parent later said, “She was the first trustee who had the opportunity to speak after public comments, and she could have made the motion against the legal fees. She could have gotten her name in the paper for carrying the ball, but Larry Christianson made the motion after she spent all her time going on about herself.”

And what was she saying about herself? She talked at length about the school board meeting she attended prior to the November 2006 election. Perhaps she said it just in case anyone might think she had never attended a school board meeting. One person at the Aug. 13 meeting said, “No one can remember seeing her at a school board meeting prior to the time she got into the race – a couple months before the election – likely because she’d never been to one before running. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that this new trustee fits in well with the old ones, except they seem to know what they’re talking about at times.”