Regarding Our Schools

By Richard C. Kreitman

I wrote this in October 2003 during the last Carmel School Board election. My position has not changed since then: That our elementary schools had excellent academic performance while our Middle School and High School were woefully underperforming. That we should have the best schools in the State, all of them. That we have all the resources needed for success and the only thing lacking was focus and leadership.

Dear Fellow District Parents,

As you are no doubt aware, we are in the midst of a School Board Election for the Carmel Unified School District. Election Day is Tuesday, November 4, 2003, and five candidates are vying for three of the seats on the five-member Board. Amy Funt, Annette Yee Steck, and Ernie Lostrom are incumbent members of the Board. They are being challenged by candidates Paul Ingram and Marilyn Bransford. We are a group of Carmel Unified School District parents who would like to ask these candidates, and our District + through its Board, administration, and schools + to refocus its primary goals towards academic excellence and safe school environments.

Here in Carmel we have a good school district, one that is blessed with a very high level of resources and some excellent schools and programs. Our expenditures per student are among the highest in the state. We have a fine teacher corps, most of whom are highly-experienced, highly-certificated, and as we know personally, intensely dedicated to our children and their education. As families we are, on average, very well-educated, economically fortunate, and extraordinarily committed to our children's educations and schools. We have proven willing to provide the time and money to support excellence in the CUSD. Given these factors, we feel that all our schools should be among the very best schools in the state. Unfortunately they are not.

According to the 2002 California API(Academic Performance Index) test rankings, Carmel River School is in the 10th decile, the top decile, of its peer schools in the state. An excellent result, but one that could still use improvement given recent test scores. Tularcitos Elementary School is in the 9th decile of similar schools, a very good result that leaves some room for improvement. The Middle School is in the 3rd decile of its peers and Carmel High School is in the 6th decile for its peer group + results we believe call for attention. As parents, we feel very strongly that given the available resources, this district can and should achieve excellence at all levels and be one of the finest in the state. We request this to be a primary goal of the district, that each of our schools ranks in the top decile of its peer group.

The other issue that concerns us is the civil atmosphere on our school campuses, a concern that we understand was vigorously addressed by the Middle School administration last year. It appears their efforts have significantly improved the situation, and we applaud their hard work and support the District in actively continuing the job. We are concerned because we had heard of prior incidents of inappropriate behavior and harassment at the Middle School and know families who have taken their children out of the district because of it. We still would like the District to commit to the goal that all our school campuses be places of civil behavior and physical and psychological safety in addition to the goal that every school in the District be in the top decile of its peer schools academically. Achieving these two goals should be complementary.

Many families struggle with the issue of whether or not to take their children out of the District and put them in local private schools, a decision that some families within the district have already made. Simply put, we want a school district of such excellence that none of us has to even consider taking our children out and enrolling them in private schools. We want the Carmel Unified School District schools, our schools, to be the best schools, public or private, in the county, if not the state. And given the resources available and our commitment to our children's education, we feel these goals are achievable and should be the goals of our school district.