WISEBURN UNIFICATION
-- Update October 2010--
Unification Status
Hi All,
It's been a while, but we are still here!!
Here the latest news on our Wiseburn Unification. No one has been
sleeping nor has it been on the back-burner. We were on the State Board
of Education (SBE) Agenda for Friday, May 7, 2010. The SBE provided
advanced notice on California Department of Education’s (CDE)
recommendation for approval of the Wiseburn Unification, with the
provision that the entire Centinela Valley (registered voters in Lennox,
Hawthorne, Lawndale and Wiseburn) be allowed to vote. Wiseburn’s voting
population is only 17% when compared to combined voting numbers of
Hawthorne, Lawndale and Lennox. To have proceeded with the May 7th
hearing agenda of SBE would have been a death sentence to our cause. In
order to prevent this negative decision from being carried through, the
Chief Petitioners of the Wiseburn Unification and the Wiseburn School
Board members decided to ask that our agenda item be pulled from the SBE
May hearing.
We’ve explored various avenues to achieve success for the Wiseburn
Unification. One area that was researched is the legality of the current
SBE position which would require that Wiseburn tax payers continue to
pay on existing bonded indebtedness from Measure C (2000) and Measure CV
(2008), totaling $71 million, while letting the entire Centinela wide
area vote on this concept. We were really hoping that SBE would honor
their original decision in 2004 of a narrow area vote meaning Wiseburn
only with the stipulation that Wiseburn continue to pay for the bond
indebtedness from Measures C and CV. The position that SBE is taking now
is the exact opposite of the winning hearings with LA County Office of
Education and the State Board of Education back in 2004. These positive
decisions in favor of Wiseburn were all prior to the multiple frivolous
lawsuits of Centinela frightening both LACOE and SBE in a recommendation
against our small Wiseburn community providing better secondary
education for our children by allowing the Centinela-wide vote.
We are re-grouping to explore various plans to achieve Wiseburn
Unification. The Chief Petitioners will continue to keep the original
Wiseburn petitions alive and continue the quest for a better and safer
high school environment for our children.
In the meantime we are preparing to send the State Board all the
signatures from our Wiseburn Unification Reaffirmation drive to the
state board to let them know that Wiseburn is not giving up and we are
still tenaciously pursuing a better education choice for our children. I
have 2,798 voices in Wiseburn and surrounding districts that say so!
Additionally, we are happy to welcome a new Chief Petitioner, Shavonda
Webber-Christmas. Shavonda will be stepping up to replace Danny Juarez.
We are ever so thankful for all the help and hard work Daniel Juarez has
put into our Wiseburn Unification quest during his tenure as Chief
Petitioner. We are also happy and relieved that Danny will continue to
support the Wiseburn Unification moving forward, however, his time now
needs to be focused toward his mayoral responsibilities. Shavonda is a
highly energized petitioner, willing to work hard to win. Please stay
tuned and continue to support the Wiseburn Unification as we continue to
explore new strategies – We may have lost the battle, but we have
certainly not lost the war!
Sincerely,
Lydia Rodriguez
Chief Petitioner
Citizens for a Wiseburn Unified School District
http://unifywiseburn.community.officelive.com/