"If a light goes on over your head and nobody else sees it glow, is it still an 'Aha' moment?
By Dick Gale, SDEA Executive Director

I would like to begin this month with a puzzle. Take the following three words - tank, hill, & secret - and add a single word that forms a compound word or common phrase with each of the three words.

Got it? Did the word TOP (tank top, hilltop, top secret) come to you in a flash or did you perform a mental search by trying many other words until arriving at TOP? In other words, did you have a true "Aha" moment or did you exercise your problem-solving muscles methodically until you discovered the right answer?

Although it may not appear in the shape of a light bulb above your head, researchers say that "Aha" moments are marked by a surge of electrical activity in the brain. All of us have experienced those moments of clarity when the solution to a vexing problem falls into place with a sudden insight and you see connections that previously eluded you. It is as if the world, which had heretofore been black and white, suddenly snaps into color. Confusion vanishes and understanding takes its place.

I raise this concept because of SDEA's experiences working with the District over the past few months on the Teacher Compensation Comparability Task Force. In the hours we have spent examining documents, listening to guest speakers and asking a myriad of questions about SDUSD's way of doing business, each of SDEA's representatives on the task force (John Anella, Marc Capitelli, Viraj Ward, Steve Kaplan & Dick Gale) have had a number of "Aha" moments. We have observed similar "Aha" reactions from District task force members, as well.

So, let me share my top five "Aha' moments regarding the workings of the San Diego Unified School District:

1. We are building and opening new schools at the same time we are experiencing chronic declining enrollment. District demographers predicted a continuing rise in SDUSD enrollment at the same time we went to the community and passed Proposi- tion MM, a multi-billion
   dollar school construction and mod- ernization bond. When District enrollment went bust and our current seven-year decline began, we had already embarked on an ambitious facilities program, resulting in more sites, more programs and fewer students. Yet, our certificated staff-to-
   student ratio remains shockingly low compared to other urban districts in California.
2. We are "ground-zero" in the school charter movement as more than three dozen charters are currently operating in SDUSD (out of more than 600 public charter school statewide). Charter school students are projected to be more than 10% of the district's total enrollment next year, more than triple the statewide average. Competition with these charter schools is one of the major driving forces behind SDUSD's
   decision-making related to grade level configurations, possible school closures and a host of other budgetary decisions.
3. We are educating more and more special education students and their growth in enrollment is happening simultaneously with SDUSD's overall declining enrollment. Therefore, the overall percentage of special education students as part of total district enrollment is increasing. Servicing their complex needs and complying with state and federal special education laws has resulted in the development of a huge SDUSD bureaucracy and an encroachment into the District's
   general fund that exceeds $50 million.
4. We are constantly trying to find the proper balance between site-based budgeting and staffing versus central office decision-making in these areas. This has resulted in a patchwork of practices district-wide that place extraordinary pressures on site governance teams, school administrators and central office budget planners when dealing with curriculum delivery, classified services and/or administrative staffing.
5. We are not "walking the walk" when it comes to teacher salaries. This is not to say that District administration is being insincere when it agrees with SDEA that competitive salaries are necessary to attract and retain highly qualified teachers in SDUSD. The problem is that recently released District budget data (from the 2006-07 2nd Interim Report) demonstrates that teachers' salaries are just not a budget priority. The chart on the next page illustrates how bargaining unit salaries, as a percentage of total outgo, have fallen for seven
   straight years.

At this point in the process, SDEA is making no value judgments about
what these new insights mean. However, we believe they will assist in
clarifying that hard choices will have to be made if the task force is to accomplish its charge of making recommendations to bring the salaries of SDEA bargaining unit members up to the San Diego County average.