Submitted by John Turpit
Dear CUSD BOARD,
The March 14 School Board meeting dealt with budget cuts and staff layoffs.
We learned the District lost more than 300 students this year. At $11,752/student paid by the State x 300, that’s a $3,525,600 loss.
If our school district was a business we would need to attract more paying customers, i.e. students, to solve the budget crisis.
If Coronado was “selling” academic excellence, we wouldn’t have a problem attracting more than the 300 students we’ve lost.
CUSD is in the top 10% of schools in California, which sounds respectable. But remember, California is ranked 38th out of 50 states in K-12 education according to U.S. News & World Report.
Many Coronado families are wealthy; they can afford expensive private K-12 schools. But I’d bet they’d quickly return to CORONADO SCHOOLS if we were in the top 1% in the nation academically; and our budget problems would be solved.
Peter Kuhns, the new [Village] Elementary school principal spoke during the same board meeting and emphasized academics. He is unhappy with the current academic performance at Coronado’s [Village] Elementary. His focus is academic excellence.
The Superintendent and the Board should take a lesson from Peter.
Please make academic excellence an agenda item for all future board meetings.
Thank you,
John Turpit
