While I agree with CHC that a “no matter what the cost” attitude isn’t wise, I certainly believe that HUSD should consider some very drastic cost-cutting measures to avoid a state takeover, because a state administrator will rush to cut costs without much concern for the needs of the community. If the budget can’t be balanced without closing 3 schools, then no matter how awful that is, the HUSD board should do it, rather than letting the state take over and close 6 schools.

Of course, we don’t want to “throw the baby out with the bathwater,” but the HUSD board must be willing to take some very unpleasant actions to avoid a state takeover, because a state takeover would be very, very unpleasant.

At some point, of course, the HUSD trustees must say “no,” and should refuse to take actions that would “make HUSD the problem instead of the solution” to our city’s education needs — even if that means forcing a state takeover.

A state takeover doesn’t bring in extra dollars, but it does bring in extra expenses (for the state administrator, staff, and consultants).

my delayed respomnse to your abovew items is lengthy but free of the usual Kyle typins errors… thus the delay to your above remarks. Kurhis will ‘flip’ at the length?

Congregations Organized for Renewal (COR) is a result of collaboration between a famous so called ‘radical’ by name of Saul Alinsky and his many admirers within Churches and Religious organizations. The Jesuit Order of Priests associated with the Catholic Church involved themselves with Saul Alinsky to the extent that they had invited him to meetings and lecture opportunities at their Colleges and Universities.

They admired him for his effective thinking on how, in essence, best serve the poor and disenfranchised. Eventually individual members of the order assisted by lending themselves to direct action activity used to bring power brokers ‘to the table’. The action was seen as a positive response to some Papal Encyclicals, especially ‘Rerum Novarum’ ( On the condition of labor; a first response to ‘Das Kapital‘, published in 1891 by Pope Leo.)

Some of Saul Alinsky’s associates were actually brought into presence of Jesuit seminarians to offer advice/instruction on pro-active techniques for establishing social justice.

In my personal career I acted under instruction of my employer to see what could be done to avoid re-occurence of that situation where a large number of volunteer activists invaded and laid on the floor of those public areas, during ’banking hours’ in a local branch bank office of my employer.

I visited the local office of that group which was directing it’s attention to some awful rental unit management practices of a particular borrower. It was an experience I will never forget but not so oddly, I fully understood the cause of their concern and actions. I next visited Fremont High School in Oakland where the same group had organized a public rally using the school auditorium to pillory my employer using the same property as the cause celebre for the meeting. I pulled an attending Jesuit aside, advised him of what Jesuit education I possessed and how it was an offense to the teaching of the church to continue…… he began by removing the accusatory evidence hanging about the entry foyer while I took my turn at speaking before the crowd. To my dismay, my action annoyed a young woman who was employed as a mentor to a Federal Home Loan Bank which sponsored a bank industry group being organized to ‘tailor’ loans outside the usual guides to solid banking practices. ( Another story).

The point is that delayed reaction to honest complaint, ignored too long, brought needed disruptive action necessary to resolve valid complaint.

Somewhere in the late 1990’s I was visited by a Jesuit involved with PICO. A street wise activist, he had been referred to me by the Pastoral members of St. Joachim’s Parish. The purpose of the visit was to seek my help in a lead position while organizing COR here in Southern Alameda County. I begged off for several reasons but offered some assistance if he found a Spanish speaking leader which I thought necessary, as an absolute, if anything was to be accomplished. Within weeks, a young woman presented herself and again asked for my presence as a leader in the group. Again I declined on the basis of language deficiency, but suggested that she make inquiry to The Pastor of the Catholic Church located within the old Decoto District of Union City. My offer of assistance was qualified to the extent that I would attend to mailers and broad ideas involving real estate practices as I knew them to exist in the rental market. Cor never acted upon my offer, which was just as well because I did not have any idea of how I would find the time to take some training on ‘street activity’ especially since my linguistic ability was limited to English.

My disappointment with COR is limited to the fact that I had sought assistance from them in the matter of re-establishing the site resident program at Longwood School. Despite at least two letters and several phone calls I received only a message that a ‘street worker’ would be in contact…. An event which never came to fruition. I did attend a COR meeting at St. Joachim’s about two maybe three years ago. They gave Dr. Vigil seemingly unlimited speaking opportunity….

Unfortunately there was no attempt to communicate with English speaking attendees.

Yes there is a problem with COR but it is limited to their concentrated effort in addressing problems of Spanish Speaking folk. Apparently, us ‘gringos’ have no right to hold an interest in the success of HUSD. I fault COR for that single reason.

If it appears that Ms. Heredia is using her office to advance her own children’s needs rather than that of the whole….. It may be just an ‘appearance’ of wrong doing. I give the lady much credit for her personal, deep interest and exhibition of proper parenting. She pursued the book problem at Longwood school through the Williams Act, when none but her consciously observed the problem. Just as I did in 1994, I’d exhibit much annoyance and would picket any attempt at unreasoning recall attempts directed at that lady.

Therein lays our biggest problem. There seems no annoyance existent toward lack of parenting skills sufficient to correct the Absence and Transience problems that are costing us something near $5,000,000 in lost Average Daily Attendance money.

Which leads to my interest in attempting to ‘sell’ our need for a town hall meeting. Increasing intensity of interest by Spanish speaking folk, needs to be matched by us who are White, Black or categorized in other ‘groups’

Nothing will improve HUSD except intense interest of all groups, including those elderly types who think they have nothing to offer.

A town hall meeting along the guidelines I recently suggested is needed. The only restraint I would impose upon those attending would be to refrain, as an absolute, from making accusatory remarks, finger pointing etc. We need positive, constructive ideas backed up by a renewed spirit of volunteerism centered solely on future actions.

For me as a ‘believer’, my greatest fear is not having sufficient explanation to offer our Creator, for much earlier offerings of excuses for not contributing greater time and effort in meeting the solutions necessary to better education processes.

Hats off to COR…. (Would they please let me into the party?) Would some kind soul pass this to the guy who identified his annoyance with me while using the well educated and somewhat revealing nom de plume “Hispanic panic victim’’ The way that gent came at me last February or March, in this Blog, you would think I was the author of that infamous law in Ari-zany. I suspect his wife to be an administrator at HUSD.

I would also like to congratulate Hayward Leadership Public High School on their CASEE (spelled wrong I know) total school scores: Math 97%, English 92%. Wonder how Hayward’s other High Schools did?

I’m paraphrasing, but that was the gist.

Interesting, don’t you think? She would rather have our schools close down than to go into receivership. What kind of sense does that make? Well, the truth is, if a district goes into receivership, the school board is rendered powerless, as is the district administration. This is the single solitary reason that Janis Duran and Maribel Heredia are fighting so vigorously against it. Clearly, by Ms. Heredia’s comments, she would rather have schools be closed down BY HER OWN HAND than have her voice quieted as a trustee. Is this the leadership that we want for our children? She would rather have them displaced, bussed, redirected or simply removed, than let go of the stranglehold she has on HUSD.

While receivership is never something anybody strives for, districts do come out of it on the other end. Frankly, the misguided judgments made by the trustees couldn’t be anything worse than what the state has to offer. This board has stuck its unqualified nose into the classrooms for too long. They are making decisions on curriculum and daily schedules that they have no business making. They are making personnel decisions based on nothing. The punch line is, Ms. Heredia pulled her children out of their schools. She placed one of her children at Faith Ringgold because “the classes were too big” at East Avenue. Hmmmm…..I wonder how that happened. Ironically, she fought like a prize fighter on Wednesday to ensure that Faith Ringgold maintain their small school with 20:1 classes. Where was her fight for the rest of the schools? The trustees are micro managing…and doing it badly. These decisions are based on the biased agendas that are brought to the board by the trustees. The most damaging, it seems, is the agenda of Ms. Heredia whose close ties to COR make me question their motives. I don’t know if Ms. Heredia believes that the winks and nods between the COR officers and herself go unnoticed by the community at the board meetings or not. Well, they are not going unnoticed. The perception is, this group had an agenda, they found an electable candidate for the board, they got the votes and now they are running the district through her. Give us some credit, Ms. Heredia. At least try to be discreet about your collusion.

Every time the name COR is mentioned, people begin to speak in hushed tones and look over their shoulders. Why? Why is everyone so afraid of them? Why do they have the power to close down schools and redesign them to their liking? I would love for someone to dig a little deeper into the COR leadership and its motives. After Ms. Heredia’s comments on Wednesday, it’s clear what her agenda is. POWER POWER POWER!!!!!!

HUSD has been taken over by a band of rogue activists. It’s time to take back OUR schools. Don’t let this power hungry mob hoodwink this community into giving over OUR schools. RECALL THIS SCHOOL BOARD! THE FUTURE OF OUR CITY IS AT STAKE!