Our tax money should go to educating our kids and not to paying absurd admin overhead when we are asking teachers to count paperclips and photocopying materials. We believe in representative government and the need for transparency and ethics from those elected. We believe if one feels strongly about an issue, they should vote and take an active stance for causes that matters - it is our fundamental right and what separates us from horrible places on this planet where dissent equals death. We believe in the overwhelming research that shows all great schools have excellent leadership, engaged parents and fabulous teachers (you are encouraged you to read Teach Like Your Hairs on Fire and to look at the Gate's Foundation research, Great Schools, US News & World Report,,etc, we can give you many more references if you are interested). We think our current board has weakened all three core areas that create excellency. Adding financial mis-management, they have failed us as a community.

We have seen kids graduate and go to Stanford who started their first high school year learning in a field with broken glass. We believe we should expect excellency from all kids and given them a reason to want to excel.

If one can believe newspapers, we are looking at an additional $1 billion plus in cuts from public education so our school budget scenario is getting worse and not better. So why is it we are paying an 18 month guarantee on a 2 year contract of $206,000 (approx) total benefits to a Sup managing 1,400 kids when the job for Oakland Sup managing 46,000 kids pays about $260,000? Why do we have 3 executive admins in our district office? Why are we paying huge bucks to a district PR person (appox $94,000) ? Why do we have an Asst Sup for a school district with 1,400 kids when many high schools have larger classes than our entire district. How do we justify $400,000 in early retirement payments (for just 2 individuals) when we had to cancel after school tutoring from lack of funding. How do we, after knowing all this, ask our community to donate money to our schools to pay for field trips, teacher supplies, sports teams, library books, computers...etc

Yes, we are upset and possibly even more so with our School Board after seeing Haley's contract. Business is not education but common sense tells us people don't get 18 month salary guarantees ever but certainly not is this economy and after such vocal protests by the community (In business, the norm is 1 week of benefits for every year of service). His contract, although hard to interpret, is a self renewing contract with no expiration date. An additional year is added to the contract with our without an evaluation. How can this possibly be the case? How could 4 Trustees ever think this was an appropriate contract to draft and neglect to reveal it's context and meaning to the community?

We can't let this go since it matters. We can not complain if we are not willing as a community to stand up for what is right and fair and just. We deserve a School Board that leads, we deserve a world class school that promotes excellency in education and we should expect our tax dollars used to educate our kids and not pay for outsider's lucrative early retirement.