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This coming week is going to be a busy one for Culver City High school bus drivers. Every team, this winter season has made their CIF SS Division playoff. The Girls' Water Polo team finished second in Ocean League at 4-2 and 13-12-1 overall. They will travel north to Oxnard to play the Pacific View League second place finisher, Rio Mesa (19-9-0) (8-2) on Tuesday February 11 at 5:00 pm. The Boys Varsity Basketball team finished third in the Ocean League at 7-3. They will start their Division 2A...
Last Saturday morning, at La Ballona Elementary School, a group of local volunteers from the various local service clubs, including, the Exchange Club, the Lions Club, the Culver City Rotary, the Kiwanis Club, the Women's Club, Friends of the Library, the Club Rotario de Latino Unidos, the Interact Club and the La Ballona PTA descended upon the school site to help revitalize the school's gardens with fresh new plantings and to install a new wooden, picnic style table in the school's garden...
In 2013-14, according to the LA County District Teacher Salary Survey, Culver City Unified was ranked 40th out of 48 districts--about $3,280 or 3.9% below the median salary. In order to achieve the district-union partnership’s goal of raising teacher salaries to the median, then board members, Steve Levin, Anne Allaire and Kelly Kent started to spend more aggressively to raise teacher salary ranking 16 steps to the median--to step 24. At What Cost? Five years later, after increasing certificated salaries almost 32%, classified salaries a...
The Lady Centaurs host Upland in the first round of the CIF SS Division 3 on Thursday night at 6:00 pm on campus at the Del Goodyear Gymnasium. Culver City (23-7) finished #1 in the Ocean League, while the Upland Highlanders/Scots (18-11) finished tied for second in the Baseline League. If the Centaurs win, they will move on to face the first-round winner of Marlborough (13-6) versus University (18-13) on Saturday, October 26th--site and time--to be determined. In 2016-17, under new head coach,...
Last year, our school district had to pay over $6.20 million in state-mandated CalSTRS contributions. A million dollars of that payment included additional costs mostly due to the board approving overly-generous raises to certificated staff and teacher retirement incentives during the past five years. This million dollar added expense doesn’t even account for the other raises given to classified employees which also increased our district’s complex-accounting of its contributions to CalPERS. It’s no wonder the board pleaded for the commu...
In Bruce Lebedoff Anders reply pointing out “the errors of my concerns,” he failed to take note of the second sentence on page eight of the district’s 2019-20 budget, titled “EXPENDITURES” where it explicitly states that 91.49% of the district’s unrestricted funding is for personnel. I’ll stick by the district’s accounting figures rather than the one Mr Anders cherry-picked off the same page. Playing with the Budget Proposed budgets establish district priorities, but are not set in stone. They are only "guestimates" of next year’s spending...
It is common knowledge among educators that most school districts nation-wide spend about 80% of their revenue, either to pay salaries or on behalf of their employees for their services. In 2018-19, Culver City spent over 91.5% of its unrestricted revenues on staff compensation. From fiscal years 2013-14 to 2017-18 the district staff cost of employment increased almost $20.0M. According to the state website Ed Data, which compiles information given it from school districts state-wide, over those...
At their year-end banquet last week, it was announced that the Culver High School Varsity Lacrosse players had received their due accolades from their opposing coaching staffs. Thomas Wilcox was named Ocean League Offensive Player of the Year. A very accurate shooter, Wilcox scored 59 goals with 13 assists and won 35 ground balls. Midfielder, Anthony Novo received Most Outstanding Player and Ray Sugiyama earned Defensive Player of the Year. Novo scored 22 goals, had 11 assists and won 30 ground...
The number of school districts facing insolvency is probably far higher than what is being shown by California’s most recent state-wide annual data, and the reason for this is the districts’ swelling pension costs. According to the survey by Pivot Learning and the California School Boards Association, nearly sixty percent of California's school districts may be forced to deficit spend before this school year ends. The Pivot Learning research—with help from the University of Missouri—sought to explore the degree in which pension costs were un...
Culver High Freshman, Gregory Troyan won the Ocean League's Single's Championship last week at Santa Monica High. After easily beating SaMo's Nino Collias in the first round in a Pro set, 8-2, Troyan advanced to the round of sixteen to play his fellow Culver City teammate, #2 singles player, Noah Tyau. Since they practice together, they knew each other's game very well. Troyan defeated Tyau in straight sets: 6-1, 6-1. Advancing to the next round of eight, Troyan took on the #1 Singles player fro...
Culver High Freshman, Gregory Troyan won the Ocean League's Single's Championship last week at Santa Monica High. After easily beating SaMo's Nino Collias in the first round in a Pro set format, 8-2, Troyan advanced to the round of sixteen to play his fellow Culver City teammate #2 singles player, Noah Tyau. Since they practice together, they knew each other's game very well. Troyan defeated Tyau in straight sets: 6-1, 6-1. Advancing to the next round of eight, Troyan took on the #1 Singles...
The UCLA baseball and softball teams are ranked No. 1 in the latest college polls. Add to that list the Bruins No. 1 ranked beach volleyball team and the Bruins are riding high in the spring despite the recent admissions scandal that included the UCLA soccer coach. The softball team is 32-1 and they travel to Arizona State for a three game series against the Sun Devils on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. They return home on April 12, 13 and 14 against Oregon. The softball team is a fun team to...
The Centaurs' defense has shutdown their last two opponents to secure the win-each time 1-0. They now move on to the CIF Southern Section Division 3 Semifinals where they will play the #1 seed Oak Hill (20-2-2) out in Hesperia, this Saturday at 3:00 pm....
After having beaten Peter Knight 1-0 in last year's first round playoffs, Culver City knew they were in for a very up-tempo game. Surprisingly, the Hawks looked even quicker as they scored first midway thru the first half on a long ball. The Hawks still led at half-time. Talking calmly to his players, Coach Pete Bartlett, pointed out that he felt that the Hawks would probably tire in the second half and that if the girls remained patience and kept the pressure on, they would break through and...
Last Friday night, the Culver City High Girls Varsity Soccer team made program history. The Lady Centaurs (14-6-4) shutout a very physical Alta Loma (17-7-3) to become the first girls' varsity soccer team to make it into the quarterfinals of the CIF Southern Section Division 3 playoffs. Emily de los Santos scored the early goal, and from there, the Centaur defense took over shutting down the Brave's offense. Second-year coach Peter Bartlett noted, "We started the game better than our previous...
Strong play by the defensive back line, led by goalkeeper Marco Vasquez and combined with first half goals by Sebastian Mejia and Kevin Bautista along an early second half goal by Curtis Collazos has put host Culver City into the second round of the CIF SS Division 4 playoffs. Keeper Vasquez (4 saves) said, "The defense knew it had to come out and play focused. Everybody was very consistent tonight, throughout the game. We deserved this win. Assistant coach Michael Castillo--Class of...
On the few lawn signs I’ve seen around the community supporting the passage of the School Board’s Measure K, there is displayed a sentimental slogan: “It’s for Our Kids.” The slogan is meant to invoke a heart-felt sentimentality that the community should pass the measure, because, don’t we love our kids and grandkids and want them to be successful in school and later in life? Isn’t it worth investing 50-cents a day for them to be successful? But, do not be fooled by this heart-tugging sentiment. Because NOTHING could be fiscally farther from...
The Los Angeles Football Club earned three big points last Saturday afternoon by outplaying the San Jose Quakes 2-0. With a pair of goals from defender Walker Zimmerman, the win kept the Black and Gold in the running for one of the top two spots in Western Conference. Knowing that the cellar-dwelling Earthquakes (4-18-8) was struggling with a new coach and a league-low of four wins and only 20 points, LAFC came out confident and showed plenty of energy. Throughout the first half, LAFC's offense...
School districts across our state need to encourage and hire new teachers to come into the profession as veteran teachers retire. The average rate of teaching staff retirements found in most school districts is less than 10 percent annually. Having your highest-paid teachers retire is one way that school districts can reduce staffing costs. But it’s those same teachers that usually have the most expertise gained through classroom experience. So, it cannot be done willy-nilly. If the retirement plan is not properly balanced, an “experience gap...
Parcel Tax Measure Is A Board Bailout The financial health of most California school districts has improved remarkably over the past six years. Last year, budgetary uncertainties forced 41 local educational agencies (LEAs) to declare that they may be in financial trouble. Thanks to a strong economy and a fully funded share of state LCFF (Local Control Funding Formula) revenues provided in next year's budget, just 25 LEAs submitted a "qualified" fiscal report-which is a formal recognition to the...
In 2012 board members were bamboozled by the local teachers union and its own administrative-insider and teacher-advocate, Superintendent David La Rose--into agreeing to a five-year plan to raise teacher salaries to the LA County median salary. The cost of this long-term program, at the time, was unknown because there was really no way to know how much the other LA County unified school districts were going to increase their own teachers’ salaries over the next five years. But, I guess, not knowing the cost, it didn’t matter much to the Boa...
The last time the community voted on a parcel tax it was back in 2009 when our state legislature thought it wise to drastically under-cut education funding to balance its own budget. That’s when the state forced our school board to turn to local property owners and ask them for a $96 parcel tax to help tide the district through the recession by offsetting at least some of the state cuts. Measure EE’s ballot description stated that it was … “To protect the quality of education in Culver City schools from deep state budget cuts by providi...
Culver Defends Its CIF Volleyball Championship Plays Santa Monica at Cerritos College Saturday's Division 4 Finals will pit #1 ranked Lady Centaurs (29-1) against its archrival #3 Santa Monica (18-6) in an All-Ocean League match. Santa Monica made the finals by beating West Torrance in the first round 3-0, Valley Christian 3-1 in the second, La Canada in the quarter-finals, 3-1 and Crean Lutheran 3-1 in the semis. The Lady Centaurs are in the finals for the second straight year and are...
Saturday's Division 4 Finals will pit #1 ranked Lady Centaurs (29-1) against its archrival #3 Santa Monica (18-6) in an All-Ocean League match. Santa Monica made the finals by beating West Torrance in the first round 3-0, Valley Christian 3-1 in the second, La Canada in the quarter-finals, 3-1 and Crean Lutheran 3-1 in the semis. The Lady Centaurs are in the finals for the second straight year and are defending their CIF Championship. They easily won over Pasadena in the first round and La...
This spreadsheet shows the count of homeless students enrolled in unified school districts throughout LA County. Enrollment was measured by counting the number of students enrolled in school on a particular day in October. The data shown was collected by the California Department of Education (CDE) from the individual districts through the California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System (CALPADS) and published on the EdData website. The California Dept of Education defines homelessness as: Children and youths who are sharing the housing...
