Parents still at odds with school district over services for vulnerable students

Some West Contra Costa Unified School District parents remain dissatisfied with the district’s plan to serve its most vulnerable students, but it’s possible the board could decide to approve it and its 2024-25 budget next week.

In June the WCCUSD school board failed to approve a previous version of the Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP), and as a result couldn’t approve the district’s budget by the state’s July 1 deadline. The LCAP outlines how WCCUSD will allocate $64.8 million in funding over the next three years, primarily for high-needs students such as those who are low-income, foster youths, or English learners. 

Since then, district staff have been adjusting the LCAP, in part to address concerns from the District Local Control Accountability Plan parent committee, a committee that the state requires to be involved in process. 

The school board will hold a public hearing Tuesday, Aug. 27, to review the latest LCAP draft, and then could consider voting to approve it Wednesday, Aug. 28. The meetings will take place at 6:30 p.m. at DeJean Middle School and will be streamed online.

Lynn Mackey, Contra Costa County Superintendent of Schools, said that the district has until Sept. 15 to approve the LCAP. If it doesn’t,the Contra Costa County Office of Education will have to impose a budget. 

“The WCCUSD LCAP team has been working hard to address the concerns presented by the board and public. I am hopeful that the board will approve the LCAP,” Mackey told Richmondside.

District attempts to improve its LCAP

District leaders say that the updated LCAP is more goal-oriented, with strategies for increasing attendance, decreasing suspensions, improving literacy and retaining teachers. But some parents have been frustrated that they did not receive access to financial documents and said they hadn’t been adequately engaged in the plan’s development, which is a state educational code requirement. 

In a meeting with several parent committees on Aug. 12, WCCUSD staff provided some answers to many questions. Some parents question how funds are being spent and which staffing positions are covered, such as how staff decide which schools get social workers.

Parents still have questions about how LCAP money is spent

Parent Yolanda Vierra Allen said at that meeting that the district did not demonstrate adequately how it plans to fill more than 200 staff vacancies. The draft LCAP outlines current programs to reduce teacher absenteeism and improve teacher retention, with a focus on teachers with three or more years of experience. It correlates 2023-24 salary increases and a “significant” decrease in teacher absences, from 15,910 in 2022-23 to 12,063 in the 2023-24 school year. The district’s number of experienced staff members increased during that time from 84% to 89%.

Parent Roxanne Carillo-Garza also asked how much LCAP funding goes to school health centers, given that some families reported a need for more mental and physical  services, for children reporting depression and other concerns, at some campuses. 

“There is no data on how the money has been spent for high-needs students through direct services,” she said. 

Parent Lucas Menanix said during the meeting that the committee has asked for reports of detailed expenditures by program and has never received it. He said that he didn’t understand why the district couldn’t provide the information after multiple requests.

“We’ve gotten that level of detail before. Why have we changed the process here?” he said.

Interim Associate Superintendent Kim Moses said a separate meeting is needed to discuss the LCAP budget. She said that the parent committee needs to provide feedback before getting detailed budget information and told Menanix “It feels like you’d like a position of oversight.”

In response, Menanix said that parents don’t have the information they need to give the feedback requested, adding “We are at an impasse.”

Following the meeting, Menanix told Richmondside that he’s glad to see the district working harder to be more transparent by including more information on LCAP-funded programs, and detailing which may continue or get combined with other programs. 

However, he said that the district’s staff do not provide enough context and transparency to back up spending millions of dollars. The public funds the district, but the parents haven’t seen the latest draft of the district’s LCAP spending plan.

“I don’t know why there’s such hesitation to provide that transparency with parents,” he said. “We had all year to do this type of work, and I don’t understand why it took us getting to this point to start unpacking this.”

Menanix said that last week his committee sent WCCUSD a letter of recommendations and commitments to make on the LCAP. On Tuesday the school board will consider those recommendations along with the newest LCAP draft — which Menanix hopes will incorporate parents’ feedback.

The historic rejection of the LCAP in June meant the board missed California’s deadline to approve the district’s 2024-25 budget. Approval of the LCAP is crucial to unlock funds for certain programs to support vulnerable student populations. Because there was no budget, the district had to roll over money from last year’s budget to, for example, fill certain support positions that needed to be filled before the start of the new school year, which was Monday.