Too many questions to answer in one sitting.

1. I thought the county board should have called an election for November. Weis announced his departure in May. The board is planning to hire a big fat christian, conservative republican.

2. Weis's new salary =$285K an increase of over $100K. The package also includes $500K at 0% and another $500K at3%. You could just call it a Million dollar loan at 1.5%. Not bad.

9. The county board members did not show up to the retirement. Not even ML as I hear it. Not really good relations if you ask me. The whole truble starts with 3, used to be 4, of the board members are tools of the fringe right.

Hi,
I live in the County and work mostly in Simi area as a Contractor I do get up here from time to time and do work. The time spent working on getting a job finished is so long I almost refuse to bid jobs there.
Over staffed Planning Division and Building Inspectors that are also Fire Dept... Planning running around there worrying if a window box with flowers in it will cross pollinate from one flower to another then making a new colored flower, of course not an approved color. The window box attached to the front of a building the Inspectors worry if the box will fall off the wall pulling the building to the ground and starting a fire.
So now after ever so many months of changing a small planter box design we have a little flower box with 4 feet by 4 feet foundation with steel posts attached to a steel flower box not allowed attaching to the building automatic fire sprinklers and a water curtain installed.
It is now five feet from the building now because it was classed by planning as another building on the same property a plastic divider will be between the pansy flowers thus we will not get rouge color than that approved by Planning. The building will not be pulled to the ground and start a fire because the new structure on the property is now protected with fire sprinklers and a water curtain. A $500 job is now a $16,000 job, taking 9 months not 2 days.
Anony

Have you heard any of the people that are applying for the position? Being that it requires so much knowledge it would be hard to find a political partisan I would think.

Of course, how much does this position pay again?

"But in a democracy people should choose their leaders. "... therein lies the first issue - we're not a democracy but in fact, a republic. And hence, many elected officials believe the majority of the general public are either 1) not knowledgeable about the issues to make quality decisions or 2) promise the world prior to elections when shaking hands and kissing babies and then simply do whatever they intended to do all along, despite any campaign promises to the contrary. In a democracy, simpliest put, it is "us"... but in a republic it is "we" (elected officials) as opposed to "them" (the general public).

Had a democracy actually been in place, when the Big Sky project was approved, it would not have meant the elimination of the GATE programs at local schools. And who was the loser at the end of the day? The children who could have greatly benefited from the GATE programs...

Mantooth and Dritz should apply. In fact they should have been appointed interim while the election process was started.

Other from the county that may or should apply:
Roger Rice (OUHSD)
Trudy Arrelega (VUSD)
Mary McKee (Somis)

Watch for some recycled supt. from around the county to rear their ugly heads.

3. The population and role of the county office is different than that of the local districts. Eliminating these offices would create a burden on the "typical" district to educate their "typical" student. You don't go to a Thai restaurant if you want pizza.

Word on the street is that the three thugs Kunicki, Valenzana and Bates are looking high and low for an extremist Christian Coalition wack job who will please their dark overlords at the VCRCC.

Is it this Mantooth:

http://www.moo.com/is/r/333/49768b96-c4a6-4277-bf90-9e20aeac3fdf.jpeg

Name the movie!

No, her brother Stan. And not 'Brother'.

I'd be in favor of eliminating the County Board's of Education. They are duplicative of the school boards and create another unnecessary layer of bureaucracy.

We could save some money to boot.

Is your opinion shaped by the local board at all? Do they make you less or more likely to support disbanding the county board?

5. But for the people that use the county services this board is critical. Do the stake holders think they could be better served by local school districts? What do you think Donna Prenta? You seem to understand the county board better than most of the people that comment here, myself included.

Hi Brian,

I have given this a lot of thought and although this warrents further research on logistics here is my take on eliminating the County Board's of Education. It is probably too much information to absorb just thinking out loud and trying to be pragmatic.

Having extensive knowledge on Corporate Downsizing for manufacturing and the logic that is used to mainstream a corporation to make the balance sheet more desirable to investors I tried to think of the Ventura County offfice of Education through that perspective not as a stakeholder. Outsourcing is a very touchy subject to unions but I believe the trend of the conservatives is to lean in that direction.

As it is set up presently there is still a need to keep the County Education Board for oversight of the County Office of Education and Superintendent. I believe you can not eliminate the County Superintendent but you may be able to have him report to a differnt Board or citizens oversight committee. County school programs will always be more cost effective to serve special needs populations where it would be cost prohibitive for each individual school district to deisgn their own especially small districts. You can not expect local school boards to be responsible for educating incarcerated youth is one example.

I can see one of two ways to eliminate the County Boards that may represent the stakeholders in a more equitable fashion.

First scenario-The County Superintendent of Scools could operate under the County Board of Supervisors much like the Sheriff, DA, Public Guardian etc.

Since the County schools operate many of their programs in collaboration with the other county agency's this could ultimately foster better inter-agency relationships if they are all being funded under one governing body that can look at the whole pie.

Some examples of County schools are the Phoenix schools (for students who are emotionally disturbed) Gateway schools (local districts refer expelled youth to Gateway) and Court schools for incarcerated youth. There is a memorandum of understanding with the County of Ventura, Ventura County Behavioral Health, Probation, County Office of education and others on how they will collaborate on taking care of the students and wards including their education and wrap around services.

Ventura County's Mental Health Board is a state mandated Board that oversees the Ventura County Behavioral Health department and the Director of Behavioral Health, they oversee and approve the budget, contracts and operation and make their recommendation to the VCBOS for approval. The state mandates that at least 50% of Mental Health Board members are stakeholders, the same could be required of the County Board of Education of citizens oversight committee that could make recommendations to the VCBOS.

Appointees on the County Mental Health Board do not receive a stipend or health insurance benefits like the County Board of Education. However they are accountable to the FPPC. I believe having stakeholders is important to guide the governing body on decisions, best practices, budgets and programs. Sometimes stakeholders are the best at identifying waste and ineffective programs and providing advocacy and lobbying for the programs. I believe stakeholders can be much more passionate and effective lobbyists rather than professional lobbyist's.

My understanding is that if you serve on the County Board of Education for ten years you have health insurance benefits for life for you and your family. That's a pretty generous perk for a parttime board that requires two meetings a month for an average of 20-40 hours monthly of time dedicated to serving on the Board.

From my observation the County Board of Education has no less responsibility than was required while I was serving on the Mental Health Board the only difference is the County Board of Supervisors has the final vote on their recommendations. I never observed the VCBOS voting contrary to the Mental Health Board's recommendation's when I served.

Another possibility would be for each school district to appoint a representative for their district who is a stakeholder in the same way that they do for the Ventura County Office of Education's Community Advisoy Committee for the Special Education Local Planning Area but this seems to be more complicated and harder to be cohesive with so many elected local School Board Members many of whom have personal agendas. Local School Boards could make recommendations to the VCBOS on who they want to represent them on a citizens oversight committee of the Ventura County Office of Education and Superintendent of SChools.

Ultimately I am for more local control so I believe that individual Counties should be able to craft their own governance plans and if there is a duplication of roles and benefits that they feel can be mainstreamed with less governmental bureaucracy that should be up to the people.

As it is now some school district's offer their own programs such as Special Education and others contract with the COunty Office of Education to run some of their special education programs. Other schools contract with Non-Public SChools-Casa Pacifica is an example of a Non-Public School for students with special needs that have been approved by the CA Department of Education.

The accounting and continuing education that the County Office of Education offers could be outsourced if you want to follow the lead of Corporate America or Ventura County could do the accounting for County Superintendent of schools. I am surprised that Conservative County Boards of Education are not already pushing the outsourcing of accounting on their agenda much like the charter schools.

I think that the County Office of Education could collaborate and contract with the Ventura County Community College Board to develop more vocational programs at the community colleges for high school students. ROP programs generally have to high of capital expenditures to make them financially feasible for all school districts to provide for example auto body or mechanics which require a lot of capital. Local school districts could provide more vocational programs in their individual Adult schools made available to high school students who want to pursue a trade.

The County Office of Education Building a $19 million dollar educational conference center seemed extreme to me. I do not know why continuing education for school employees can not be offered on site at the individual school districts. Renting the building out for commercial reasons other than serving stakeholders/students seems goofy to me, their not commercial real estate developers, their educators. I would like to know how other counties have dealt with conference centers, couldn't property be leased rather than making a capital expenditure? Can't school district's hire outside contractors to deliver continuing education?

Observing coprorate manufacturing jobs conducting downsizing they usually have their suppliers make the capital expenditures to keep their balance sheet with more cash, they also are not having to maintain and depreciate capital assets such as real estate.

Just some thoughts and observations, I will be curious to hear input from others on how to make the County Office of Education more streamlined, encourage better inter-agency collaborations, cost effective and consumer centered.

I hope we can do better than Chuckles Weis this time, but there is little hope of that happening.

While he had harsh words for the board on his way out the door, he took no responsibility for enabling Bates, Valenzano, Matthews and Kunicki all these years. He played ball with the Stricklands to cover his own ass for a long time. Seeing the end result of his neglect, too little too late, he takes a parting shot as he skates out the back door.

Good riddance to bad rubbish, Chuckles. Thanks for nutin'.

Brian,

I must say, I don't really hold the local school bored, err board, in very high esteem either. For me that would be the Ventura Unified School District Board. I voted for Monique Dollone in the last election, so you probably know where I stand.

So, Mongo, you voted for the women whose own child's school issued a protective order to keep her off campus because she was a disruption?

The woman who shows up at School Board meetings now with Carroll Dean Williams?

The woman who has wasted taxpayer dollars by filing complaints against the district with the California Department of Education which investigated and found the complaint unsubstantiated?

The woman who went on to file a discrimination complaint with the Office of Civil Rights, which was also found unsubstantiated?

The woman who went on to file a lawsuit last year which was also dismissed, which she is currently appealing?

Whose pocket is all that money coming out of? Would it have been better spent on our kids instead of a gadfly's endless complaints?

Wow, you need to do your research. And you support Strickland, too. It figures.

Donna,

Thanks for sharing your insight in great detail.

I appreciate you reading and commenting on my blog.

A Wasted Vote,

Yep, you got it right. I voted for someone who has the audacity to advocate for change in the status quo of a staid, complacent, bureaucrat-controlled school board that is working very fervently to retain its power, as opposed to working to promote the education and future of our children. This school board is the very reason I chose to send my kids to private schools.

And, yes, I am very proud to say that I support Tony Strickland as well. He will work to protect the interests of taxpayers and working citizens in the district, not special interests (unions and trial lawyers) and the rich liberals residing in Montecito, Summerland, and Santa Barbara (her primary base of support).

Flamo,

You forgot to mention limousine liberal in your rant against trial lawyers and unions.

You usually work that in somewhere.

Thanks for reminding me, Brian. Those limousine liberals in Santa Barbara are one of her main bases of support.

What is the background on the new appointee to the board?