Schools

Budget Cuts Threaten Successful John Muir Program

Superintendent Edwin Diaz hopes to keep the Muir Reinvention program alive.

A John Muir High School program that Pasadena Unified administrators credit with turning the school around in the last three years faces possible elimination if the district sees the highest level of budget cuts administrators can expect next year.

The Muir Reinvention program has been running since 2007. It involves a block schedule program with three core academy programs focusing on career-oriented courses, like business.  It also has meant additional teacher training opportunities and a focus on retaining the more dedicated teachers at Muir, the default neighborhood school for West and most of Central Altadena.

Unfortunately, the program faces the threat of elimination if the most severe proposed budget cuts go through next year, according to PUSD Superintendent Edwin Diaz.  He believes the program has been extremely successful, and he said he plans to do his best to keep it going.

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"This is the right model," Diaz said. "It's the right program for the kids at the school."

The reinvention program has been around at Muir since 2007 and PUSD officials credit it with resulting in a 57-point increase on its Academic Performance Index since 2007.

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The initial changes from the program resulted in teachers essentially reapplying for their jobs to prove they were capable and motivated to continue at the school.  It led to a changed faculty attitude, according to Pete Newlove, an English teacher at the school who says the program has been a big improvement.

"Some people felt it was kind of an insult to have to reapply for your own job, but the whole idea, I think, was it would weed out some of the people who didn't want to jump through those hoops," Newlove said.

The program involves offering three block courses in Arts, Media and Entertainment, Business and Entrepreneurship, Engineering and Environmental Science, and a Freshman Academy.  Kids participating in the program stay together in the same class groups through the academy so they get to know each other and have the same teachers.

The extra budget expenses for the program have gone towards bringing in five extra teachers to assist with the academies, towards staff training, and for an extra assistant principal at the school who helps handle discipline and administrative issues.  That helps free up the principal to focus on the new academy programs and academic issues in general, Diaz said.

Two different components of the program are at risk in the  the district faces, Diaz said. 

First is the extra vice principal at the school: the job is listed in the Category II proposed cuts, which are the second round of cuts to happen if the district is forced by state budget cuts to reduce its spending by up to $8 million.  District officials refer to Category II cuts as "moderate impact."

The more serious blow to the program would be the loss of five teachers from Muir, Diaz said.  Those cuts would come under the Category III, or severe cut scenario, where the district is forced to cut up to $11 million.

Diaz said it is far too early to determine just how likely facing the full $11 million in cuts would be, but has said that under some scenarios being discussed by state legislators, the district might have to go beyond Category III cuts to balance the budget.

Additionally, Diaz said, there is a possibility that those five teacher jobs could be saved and teachers from other schools dismissed to make up the difference.  He said he would be negotiating with the teacher unions to prioritize saving the jobs of teachers who had received higher levels of training for programs like Muir Reinvention.

In the meantime, teachers at the school will continue to be concerned over the future of the program, Newlove said.  In his six years at Muir, it seems the leadership and philosophy of the school has changed a lot, and Newlove is hoping to see more stability.

"There is kind of a fear that for some of the teachers who have been around a while, they feel like they have been 'reinvented' a number of times already," Newlove said. "Consistency is something that goes a long way...in my experience the past three years have been the most consistent, and we've seen the most growth and positive change among students and staff."

Diaz said he sympathizes with those concerns, and they are a major reason why he wants to see the program saved.

"To go along constantly starting and stopping new programs is extremely frustrating," Diaz said.  "One of the rules about new reforms is you have to allow for them to take place ... it can take 5 to 7 years to really get a program working."

It's a message he hopes people get state legislators to listen to.

"I'm hoping that people will complain loudly enough that budget will not be based on cuts alone," Diaz said.


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