With regard to furlough days, MDUSD is one of the only districts in the area that has *not* taken furlough days – WC, Acalanes, Martinez, San Ramon, Liberty, San Francisco, Cupertino all had furlough days. Since MDEA would not negotiate on this in 2010, pink slips were issued and many teachers lost their jobs. In other districts, the teachers union and the district came to agreement for 2010-2011 school year on furlough days and *saved* teacher jobs.

Regarding consulting, some of the consultants work could not be done by current district employees (such as birth rate forecasts, population migration/growth/decline analysis utilized by the school closure committee). The district does not have full time staff on board that has this expertise (in fact, I’m sure the district would be criticized if they did have staff; someone would say too much overhead). So if the analysis is only needed for a project, it makes fiscal sense to hire expert consultants for the duration of the project and to not hire them on staff permanently (especially in times of tight budgets).

First, the state and federal grants that provide money for school improvement typically require the use of outside consultants and staff attendance at training activities. Grant funds cover the cost. The consultants bring in ideas and experience from their work in other districts. The staff training provides opportunities for MDUSD staff to learn from and with peers in other districts. I appreciate Ms. Hansen requesting the details on how both grant and General Fund money is being spent on these activities so she can effectively evaluate the use of these funds.

As for the principal meetings, Gary Eberhart demanded a couple of years ago that they be held after school. When the principals were told of this demand, they pointed out that they had far more responsibilities at their sites at the end of the day, when students are on campus but not in classrooms, parents stop in when picking up their students, and staff is available for conversations and meetings. Principals agreed to move up the morning meeting time from 8:30 to 7:30 and to set a maximum time limit of 2 hours.

These meetings, whether a full K-Adult or grade-level specific, are important opportunities to share information, ideas, common problems and issues, and education practices among school leaders. They help develop relationships and a support system among the principals and lead to collaboration among school staffs as well. (One of the sad aspects of the closure of Glenbrook and Holbrook is the end of a formal collaboration, with Sun Terrace. Over the past couple of years staff of the three schools participated in leadership training, some of it in southern California, to develop “professional learning communities” at each site. Recent student achievement data reflects this training.)

A meeting in and of itself may seem unnecessary. But without interacting with district staff and other site administrators periodically, principals work in the vacuum of their own specific school site, and pretty soon MDUSD is back to where it was in the 1990s: a collection of individual, quasi-independent schools with differing curriculum, financial and volunteer support, and assumptions about student achievement.

Over the past decade the amount of school-to-school interaction has increased, especially among K-12 schools in the same feeder patterns, where staff and parents can look at their students’ needs along a continuum rather than at a specific school or grade level. The principal meetings are essential to this interaction. Frankly, there is no time–morning, afternoon, evening, even the weekend–when someone doesn’t expect a principal to be on campus. But mornings are when most of the other staff is there to handle things. And if a campus need arises, believe me, the principal puts that ahead of the meeting.