This is a topic that I should have commented on a few weeks ago, but I have been pretty busy and traveling a lot for work.  But this issue is and will remain timely.

Quite simply, the Western Placer Unified School District, which largely serves the city of Lincoln, is a district in trouble.  We've talked about it before.  Financially, the district, which should be flush with the cash from developers fees you'd expect from the fastest growing city in America. 

Instead, the district is $183 million in debt, and has announced that the planned new high school will be delayed for the better part of a decade.

What was most puzzling to parents was that, the disclosure of the facilities debt at WPUSD seemed to come from nowhere.  Almost literally, one day, the district was interviewing architects for the new High School, and the next day, the announcement that the district was nearly $200 million in debt came public.

Their response to this - they hired a facilities consultant, who magically told the district that they didn't really need a new high school anyway...BINGO, problem solved.

Academically, the test scores show a district where mediocrity at worse seems acceptable.  All the schools in the district score at or worse than average when compared to similar schools statewide.  In other words, our "good schools" in the "good neighborhoods" do worse than other such schools statewide, and similarly, the schools in more socio-economically challenged neighborhoods also fare poorly on both an absolute and relative scale.

Now before I go further, I always feel like I have to comment that my complaints about the WPUSD do not rest with the principals or teachers that I have met.  In particular, I happen t have gotten to know the principal, vice principal, and my son's fourth and fifth grade teachers.  All are excellent. 

Yet somehow, despite good teachers and school site administrators, the district on the whole under performs.  That tells me that we have a entire district that is not challenging itself to be better, and, as I said at the start, that mediocrity is acceptable.  That failing comes from the school board and the superintendent.

I have discussed this with Dave Patterson, the leader of the Rocklin Academy charter school, which is a public charter school in neighboring Rocklin which has scored the highest test results in all of Sacramento, El Dorado and Placer counties.  What's more, Rocklin Academy is not a selective school.  Admission is by lottery and wait list.  What's different is that Rocklin Academy demands and expects academic success.  They start with the philosophy that almost all children can learn at a higher level than most public schools ask them to do. 

Rocklin Academy, quite simply, just demands more and gets it.

Now, going back to the WPUSD , we have a district that has clearly been fiscally mismanaged and does not demand high standards.  These are of course serious problems, but I am starting to believe they stem from an arrogance that is even more problematic.

For example, when members of the public and even members of the district's own facilities staff brought to light documents that appeared to show massive cost overruns and other financial irregularities in schools construction, they asked the Placer County Grand Jury to investigate the problems.

The WPUSD at first made no comment about these charges or the investigation.  After a couple weeks, early this month, they promised they would address the concerns being raised.  Yet when the time came, what was their announcement - that they would - AGAIN - hire their own outside consultant to tell them how they lost $183 million and address the concerns raised by the documents and the Grand Jury investigation.

Does anyone really believe that the WPUSD has the ability to investigate themselves? 

It is actually almost embarrassing...I hate to make such a remark, but do they think they have so dumbed down the community that no one will question the second time in a year that they have hired their own consultant to investigate their own problems?  Do they expect that anyone will give any credences to a consultant they hired to look at themselves?

If WPUSD had demonstrated any moral authority at all...either high standards for academic excellence, or prudent management of the taxpayers money, I would be among those who argued to give them the benefit of the doubt.  But, they have no such moral authority. 

THE WPUSD has already wasted enough taxpayer resources.  They should get rid of the consultant they have hired with more of our taxpayer dollars, and let the Grand Jury conduct the investigation into the mess that is this district.