Fullerton School Board Archives - Page 4 of 11 - Friends For Fullerton's Future

April 4, 2011April 4, 2011Fullerton School Board

Fullerton Stories Gets A Close Look at Chris Thompson

Take a look at this new FullertonStories.com article on Fullerton School Board Trustee Chris Thompson.

In the article, Thompson (the top overall Fullerton vote-getter in 2010) outlines his battle to improve the value and quality of public education by making a portion of teacher compensation based on performance, rather than just seniority and certificates.

Thompson is an avowed conservative in a conservative town, but he frequently finds himself voting against the other school board members on financial issues. He blames the power of the public employee unions for much of the financial challenges that our school districts face today.

So what about that “challenging the status quo” label? Chris doesn’t seem to accept furlough days and class size increases as a good deal for kids OR taxpayers. If that makes him an anomaly on the school board, then our kids really are getting swindled.

March 24, 2011March 24, 2011Fullerton School Board

The Full List

by Travis34 Comments

For the sake of fairness and in the interest of full disclosure, here is the full list of Fullerton School District’s highest paid employees, including administrators. Naturally, administrators top the list. As you can see, the list is considerably expanded.

[iframe_loader width=”100%” height=”650″ frameborder = ‘0’ marginheight=’0′ marginwidth=’0′ click_words=” click_url=” scrolling=’auto’ src=’https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AiyL667gfsw9dFJjenlCMzlnTFY3MzBVUTdiZXpNbWc&output=html&widget=true’]

March 23, 2011March 23, 2011Fullerton School Board

Deleted

by Travis20 Comments

It’s a good thing that FFFF is recording the board meetings of the Fullerton School District. I just found out that Superintendent Mitch Hovey orders the district’s own audio recordings to be destroyed 30 days after each meeting.

How’s that for transparency and accountability?

Anyway, here’s the video from last night’s meeting. All of the recordings are available under the FSD Videos tab above.

Scroll ahead 45 minutes and listen to the union spokesperson pat a few fellow teachers on the back for using one of their valuable weekends to attend a conference at a hotel on educational topics, including… retirement benefits!

How selfless.

March 21, 2011March 21, 2011Fullerton School Board

Eighty-Four Underpaid Teachers Who Make Over $90k

by Travis219 Comments

Yesterday one of our blog readers expressed disbelief that any Fullerton teacher made over 80 grand a year. That’s a lot of money for a part time job, and our poor school teachers are supposed to be underpaid, right?

Well, take a look at this list of 84 FSD teachers who made over $90,000 in the 2009-2010 school year.

[iframe_loader width=”100%” height=”600″ frameborder = ‘0’ marginheight=’0′ marginwidth=’0′ click_words=” click_url=” scrolling=’auto’ src=’https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AiyL667gfsw9dFJtY0c4MFNOZkVSSHRKaHQzdlpKT3c&output=html&widget=true’]

But the real kicker is that these folks only had to work for 182 days a year to earn these salaries, while the rest of us slog it out for about 240 days.

confused — When I grow up will I get the summer off too?

So it seems that plenty of Fullerton teachers are doing just fine after all. Maybe it’s time for the school board to stop accepting furlough days as the solution to our budget problems. It’s supposed to be about the children, right?

March 18, 2011March 18, 2011Fullerton School Board

Happy Furlough Day from Janny Meyer!

by The Fullerton Shadow43 Comments

Check out today’s weepy facebook ramblings from the allegedly-conservative Fullerton School Board Trustee Janny Meyer as she whines about the downsides of furlough days and their effect on all of those hard working teachers:

Keep reading as the sentiment is bounced around the echo chamber by union president Andy Montoya and then the dearly departed Collabricorn, Pam Keller.

So a crew gets all hopped up because a few teachers engage in a little professional development in their time off… something considered perfectly common for every private sector professional I’ve ever met. We just don’t have to hear them making a fuss about it.

No mention by Janny that furlough days are foisted upon us at the insistence of her own teachers’ union as a wonderful alternative to the actual pay reductions that the rest of us in the real world are taking. Maybe someone should remind Janny and her union pals of this important fact: today every kid in Fullerton will go without the day’s ed-u-ma-cation because teachers chose to take a day off instead of receiving a small pay cut.

February 26, 2011February 26, 2011About Us

Addiction, Hovey and Consequences

by admin18 Comments

Could the real reason that Fullerton School District superintendent Herr Doktor Mitch Hovey told his IT guy to deny FSD network access to our blog was because some of the district employees were addicted to our humble little blog and spending way too much of our (tax payers) dime/time blogging and not working?

Well, that sure seems plausible. And it’s true that we have been a lot less than enthusiastic about some of the goings on at District HQ, from the bogus laptop scam to the Board’s congenital rubber stamping. Oh, and yeah, the Pam Keller Collaborative swindle. That probably stirred up some resentment among the rank and file.

Yet, instead of telling the employees to knock off the blogging and getting back to work, it appears that the good doctor simply denied them access to our blog. And only our blog. I’m sure those same employees are still surfing the internet; it’s sort of like an addiction, and as with most addicts when they give up one addiction they replace it with another.

So I have to wonder what we are being replaced with. Youtube, OC Weekly personal ads, Hulu?

And I also have to wonder who is next on the censorship hit parade.

February 24, 2011February 24, 2011Fullerton School Board

School Board HD

by Travis10 Comments

OK, so our first foray into school board broadcasting was a little underwhelming. Low quality video, barely audible audio. It was better than nothing, but not really good enough for us.

So FFFF raised the bar a little bit. Here is this week’s meeting presented in glorious high-definition 720p with Dolby digital surround sound. The whole enchilada. Enjoy.

Download the February 22, 2011 agenda

Unfortunately FSD employees sitting behind the Great Firewall still won’t be able to watch their own board meetings. Oh well.

We’ll keep all of the recordings here under the “Archives” menu above. Click the “Fullerton School District Recordings” link for the list.

February 21, 2011February 21, 2011Fullerton School Board

Firewall Demonstration

by admin24 Comments

The other day I took a field trip over to FSD HQ and took a ride on their network. Apparently the FSD network train makes many stops; but there are some places you just can’t get off. Did I just say “get off?”

February 17, 2011February 18, 2011Fullerton School Board

ACCESS DENIED

by Travis54 Comments

The other day I used a super secret password to utilize the Fullerton School District’s wireless network, for no particular reason. While connected, I tried to access some of my favorite and least favorite local blogs and news sites. Here’s what I discovered from behind the FSD firewall:

LiberalOC blog – allowed
Red County blog – allowed
Voice of OC blog – allowed
Orange Juice Blog – allowed
OC Register blogs – allowed
Fullerton Observer – allowed
Friends for Fullerton’s Future – BLOCKED

It appears that Friends for Fullerton’s Future has been singularly snuffed from teacher and staff access at the Fullerton School District. Now why wouldn’t the administration want anyone to read our blog?

Maybe they didn’t appreciate our cold look at the ramifications of heavy child-Internet immersion back in 2009. Or maybe they were offended by our unraveling of the Fullerton Collaborative conflict-o-sphere. What if they were upset about blogger Chris Thompson’s spectacular ascension to the Fullerton School Board?

Mitch-Hovey — "War is a game that is played with a smile."

Whatever the reason, things are starting to look pretty political over at the Superintendent’s office. OK we get it, Doctor Hovey.

February 9, 2011February 19, 2011Fullerton School Board

Finally, Fullerton’s First School Board Broadcast

by Travis14 Comments

The Fullerton School Board doesn’t show its meetings on cable or the Internet. In fact, they don’t even post the audio recordings online. The only way to find out what really happened is to drive over to the district headquarters and ask for a CD.

Well that’s pretty sad, especially given the board’s constant bloviating about their total technological immersion programs for little kids. Shouldn’t the self-appointed exhibitors of the next YouTube generation be a little more eager to put themselves online?

We can do better. And so the Friends are going to bring some extra transparency to the Fullerton School Board meetings by broadcasting them and posting the archives online for the benefit of the public. Here is the first recording of last night’s meeting:

View the agenda

Most of the meeting is spent “giving out gold stars” just as commenter Fullerton Rudy predicted, but there are a few interesting items in the video:

Discussion and approval of Board policy on Charter Schools – 1:37:00
Discussion and approval of lawsuit against OC Health Care Agency regarding state funding changes – 1:41:30

Our hope is that the district will ultimately take the reigns and opt to broadcast and record their own meetings, but in the meantime we promise to archive them here at FFFF for all to see (and comment on.)