- The governor has until next Thursday, March 10th, to get enough votes to put his proposed tax extensions on the June ballot. He needs all the Democrats in the Assembly and the Senate, plus two Republicans from each house to get the measure before the voters. As previously reported on this blog, this has big implications for public education. Stay tuned for updates on this and other important issues affecting Berkeley Adult School.
- The BUSD Board of Education will hear about a proposal to bring a Community School to the BAS campus this coming Wednesday, March 9th, at 7:30 pm. In addition, we are in the process of scheduling an Information Session for our school community to hear more details about the proposal.
- Following the above mentioned Information Session, which will be facilitated by our Superintendent, we intend to schedule several Open Forums to discuss our budget and other issues important to our stakeholders.
The item regarding the operation of a Community School on the Berkeley Adult School campus has been pulled from the March 9th School Board agenda. Instead, the process will begin with an Information Session prior to going to the School Board, explaining the proposal to stakeholders and listening to feedback. This will occur at Berkeley Adult School on Wednesday, March 16 at 7:00 pm.
ReplyDeleteBerkeley Unified School District and Alameda County Office of Education staff who are involved in the proposal will participate in this Information Session.
Gov. Jerry Brown this afternoon has asked Democratic leaders in the Legislature to delay voting on the state budget Thursday -- his target date for passage of a spending plan -- in order to give him more time to woo Republicans.
ReplyDeleteIn a statement released this afternoon, Brown's spokesman Gil Duran said, "Gov. Brown has continued to engage in positive and productive budget discussions with legislators on both sides of the aisle. For this reason, he has asked the Pro Tem and the Speaker to temporarily delay any vote on the budget in order to allow more time to find common ground and to put the state's finances back in balance."
Brown earlier in the week had predicted that Thursday might be too ambitious of a target. That same day, five Republican Senators who Brown was courting said they had reached an impasse. But on Tuesday, the very next day, they said they would return to the negotiating table and meetings at the Capitol have been ongoing.
Those Republicans, Sens. Tom Berryhill of Modesto, Sam Blakeslee of San Luis Obispo, Anthony Cannella of Ceres (Stanislaus County), Bill Emmerson of Hemet (Riverside County) and Tom Harman of Huntington Beach, have put out a general outline of reforms they would like to see made through the budget.
They include a spending cap, pension reforms, regulatory reforms, ending hiring restrictions and tax code reform.
It is not clear when some type of agreement might be reached. If all Democrats in the Senate and Assembly vote for the budget, just two Republican votes would be needed for the needed two-thirds majority.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/nov05election/detail?entry_id=84681#ixzz1GAhTTnLo