West Contra Costa Unified School District
Parent Advisory Committee on Redistricting
Meeting Minutes

June 14, 2004

The meeting opened at 6:10 p.m. with introductions. Since Mr. Richards was not present, the committee took up the question of making their deliberations public. A parent noted that the PowerPoint presentation addressing their recommendations had been posted on the web and had caused confusion among parents from her school. This was an error on the part of staff and was not the intent of the committee to post information before they had an opportunity to discuss the issue.

After lengthy discussion, the committee decided unanimously to make the information public after they had thoroughly discussed the issues and had received the necessary information from the demographers or staff to reach a decision. The overriding concern was to make the process transparent and invite as much public input as possible before decisions are made. The issue of improving outreach to parents was discussed and several suggestions were made to the staff, who agreed to implement them. The committee then agreed to post on the web only the discussions/decisions that were clear and approved by the committee.  They agreed to review information and post it one week after each meeting. They wanted the postings to clearly note that the redistricting process’s primary focus was the school/neighborhood residents, and not school enrollments, which included transfers. The committee also agreed that the web site should invite general comment to go to the web master or designee and that all comments should be posted on the web site so that committee members could easily access them.

Consultant, Cheryl King, presented the information on school API scores and on private school in the district, which was also declining.  A discussion followed and Cheryl said that she would send the committee a password to access more information on her site.

The committee expressed disappointment that they still did not have sufficient fiscal information to decide on most of their initial recommendations. Cathie Kosel apologized for staff and said the information would be made available to them at the next meeting. She proceeded to share with the committee the recommendations and decision-making process used by the staff. The committee welcomed the information and asked for this information in writing and Cathie said she would supply it.

 The committee was asked to review the list of recommendations to see if there were any recommendations that they could finalize. They finalized the three of the seven recommendations at this meeting and will post these decisions at the conclusion of their next meeting on June 28, 2004.  They agreed to approve recommendations as they go and not all at one final meeting, allowing them to review public commentary as they go.

A brief discussion was held on deadlines and the possibility of meeting in July. Members were asked to bring their calendars to the next meeting to determine future dates.

Respectfully submitted – Anita Madrid