Extra school session in Chino canceled after state board says no
A San Bernardino County school district has canceled the remainder of a special summer session that it scheduled to make up for regular school days that were too short.
Chino Valley Unified hoped the extra 34-day session would satisfy state officials, who could impose a penalty of $5 million based on the number of both the missed days and the affected students. The mistake occurred at two elementary schools in the district of 34,000 students.
On Thursday, the state's Board of Education voted unanimously to reject the extra session as inadequate.
Chino Valley Interim Supt. Wayne Joseph said that the poorly attended supplemental classes would end Friday: “Why continue at more of a cost to the district?”
The full extra session had been projected to cost about $200,000.
The district can still avoid the hefty fine. The district could appeal to a state audit panel. And the Legislature is considering a bill that could give Chino Valley relief in exchange for offering a smaller number of extra instructional days
And the state board retains the authority to waive the penalty if the district lengthens the school year by the number of days missed for the affected students during each of the next two years.
“Frankly, the [state Board of Education] isn’t interested in seeing the district pay the financial penalty,” said board president Ted Mitchell in a statement. “We just want to ensure that students get all of the instructional time they need and deserve, and that the district was paid to provide.”
As for the extra session, he said: “the board concluded that not enough students participated to constitute even a partial remedy.”
The district has not yet tallied enrollment in part because some students were participating through an off-campus independent study option that allowed them to turn in work, Joseph said. Students were not penalized for skipping the session entirely.
At Rolling Ridge Elementary, for example, only 52 of 278 affected students were expected to attend in person, and for an average of only 17 days, according to state board documents. The state board was especially concerned about Dickson Elementary, which has below-average test scores and rates even lower when compared with similar schools.
The “first strike” against the district plan was student achievement levels, said board member Yvonne Chan. “Attendance was the second strike,” she said. “And we didn’t get to strike three.”
-- Howard Blume
Correction: An earlier posting said that state law specified that the district would be subject to both the $5 million fine and to making up for the lost instructional time. In fact, the state board can waive the fine if the district adds schools days equal to the lost time in both of the subsequent two school years.
