April 4, 2017 Sent via email & Priority Mail Superintendent Christopher Steinhauser Long Beach Unified School District 1515 Hughes Way Long Beach, CA 90810 cstein@lbschools.net RE: UCP COMPLAINT AGAINST LONG BEACH UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT FOR ITS FAILURE TO ENSURE SUPPLEMENTAL AND CONCENTRATION FUNDS INCREASE OR IMPROVE SERVICES FOR HIGH-NEED STUDENTS Dear Superintendent Steinhauser: Public Advocates presents this Uniform Complaint Procedure (UCP) complaint on behalf of Children’s Defense Fund-California, Latinos in Action, and parents Marina Roman Sanchez and Guadalupe Luna (collectively, Complainants) against Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD or the district). Together, Complainants represent low-income and English learner students as well as their families who have been working to ensure that LBUSD invests increased resources for the district’s high-need students through its LCAP. Public Advocates has been deeply engaged in supporting the implementation of the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) in a way that makes real the promise of increased and improved services for high-need students, and greater transparency and meaningful engagement for school communities. Children’s Defense Fund-California, Latinos in Action, Ms. Roman, and Ms. Luna assert herein that LBUSD is not spending its supplemental and concentration (S&C) grants, as required by law, to proportionally increase and improve services for the high-need students in Long Beach who have generated those funds. Public Advocates wrote to the district on June 6, 2016 regarding the LBUSD’s draft Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP), citing concerns with the district’s proposal to spend significant S&C funds on districtwide actions without demonstrating how these actions are principally directed towards and effective in meeting the district’s goals for high-need students or how they constitute a growth in service for high-need students. (See Attachment 1.) These expenditures included $21.4 million for staff salaries and benefits, which on their face at best maintained but did not increase or improve services to LBUSD’s high-need students, especially as compared to all students. The district did not address this issue before it adopted its 2016-2019 LCAP on June 23, 2016. The district’s response to our letter on July 21, 2016 also did not provide sufficient justification pursuant to the LCFF regulations. (See Attachment 2). On August 9, 2016, Public Advocates sent a follow-up letter to the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) urging it to assist the district in remedying these issues before approving Long Beach Unified’s 2016-2019 LCAP. 1 (See Attachment 3.) LACOE wrote letters to the district on August 12th and September 9th requesting that the district justify the $21.4 million on staff salaries and benefits that Public Advocates raised, as well as $17 million in S&C funds allocated toward Common Core aligned textbooks. (See Attachments 4 & 5). Responding to the letters from LACOE, the district amended its LCAP on September 15, 2016, albeit inadequately (hereinafter Amended LCAP). Complainants recognize that the district nominally decreased the amount of S&C funds for employee benefits, added additional language to certain action items and moved considerable funds from the “General Administration and Other Services” action under Conditions of Learning Goal #4 to the “Instruction-Related Services” action. However, the Amended LCAP still does not adequately resolve the issue we raised nearly ten months ago, as the district still plans to spend $21.4 million in S&C funds on salaries and benefits and $17 million on textbooks without adequate justification. LBUSD’s expenditure of $21.4 million in S&C funds on salaries and benefits, in addition to $19.5 million in S&C funds on textbooks and technology, without clear explanation for how it will grow services in quantity or quality for high-need students and how these funds will be principally directed towards and effective in meetings its goals for highneed students, including low-income students and ELs, is both inequitable and illegal, as explained below. Accordingly, Children’s Defense Fund-California, Latinos in Action, Ms. Roman, and Ms. Luna request the district immediately amend its LCAP to provide the necessary legal justifications, if possible, and where not, to reallocate supplemental and concentration funds to genuinely increase and improve services for high-need students with consideration for the required community input in the reallocation/amendment process. A. Complainants Ms. Roman and Ms. Luna are parents of low-income and English learner students who attend public schools in LBUSD. Children’s Defense Fund-California (CDF-CA) is a state office of the Children’s Defense Fund, a national child advocacy organization. CDF-CA champions policies and programs that lift children out of poverty, ensure all children have access to health coverage and care and a quality education, and invest in our justice-involved youth. Latinos in Action is a community-based organization whose mission is to fortify and enrich the lives of families, individuals, seniors and youth. These organizations and parents have come forward out of a deep concern that the district is not providing critical services for high-need students. In doing so, they are exercising their legal rights under the Education Code to use the UCP process to seek resolution for concerns related to the district LCAP, as well as their constitutional rights to free speech. We fully expect that the district and its staff will abide by their obligation to refrain from any retaliation or actions that would give the appearance of retaliation against our clients for the exercise of their complaint rights. Any such actions would violate the spirit and the letter of the law. 2 For purposes of investigating this complaint and reporting any findings or decision, complainants can be contacted through counsel listed on this letter. B. LBUSD’s Original LCAP, Its Amended LCAP and Related Factual Background 1. LBUSD’s June 23, 2016 Adopted LCAP In the LCAP adopted by the LBUSD Board of Education on June 23, 2016, the district allocated over $40 million in S&C funds districtwide on staff salaries, benefits, textbooks and technology without explaining how these expenditures were principally directed and effective to furthering district goals for high-need students1 as the law requires. The following S&C expenditures are at issue: • Under goal “Conditions of Learning #2,” $17,020,000 to “provide sufficient textbooks and instructional materials that align with Common Core,” and $2,500,000 to “[e]nhance LBUSD’s technology infrastructure and support services” (LBUSD June 23, 2016 Adopted LCAP, at 11-12); • Under goal “Conditions of Learning #4,” $7,000,000 to certificated salaries and $14,400,000 in employee benefits, which appeared to consist of “California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) pension reform contributions”. (Id. at 16.) Public Advocates wrote to the district on June 6th regarding the justification of the $21.4 million in S&C allocations for certificated salaries and employee benefits. (See Attachment 1.) LACOE wrote to the district on August 12th and specifically raised the issues of textbooks, salaries and benefits in its letter from September 9, 2016. (See Attachments 4 & 5.) 2. LBUSD September 15, 2016 Amended LCAP As noted, in response to Public Advocates’ August 9, 2016 letter and other concerns, LACOE caused the district to amend its LCAP, albeit inadequately. (See Attachment 3). The district did not change the questionable S&C expenditures under “Conditions of Learning #2” ($17,020,000 on instructional materials and $2,500,000 on technology infrastructure). Over the next three years, over $35 million in S&C is allocated to Common Core aligned textbooks and instructional materials, and $7.5 million in S&C is allocated toward technology and support services. (Amended LCAP at 11-15.) Regarding the instructional materials, the district states that these materials “play a vital role in … closing achievement gaps,” because the “emphasis on the child learning much more than the answer helps in particular to reach disadvantaged students in the unduplicated population.” (Id. at 12.) The district’s only explanation for the technology and support services allocation is that this “enhancement strengthens college and career readiness efforts.” (Id.) The annual measurable outcome and metric for these investments, “100% compliance with the instructional materials requirements,” does not indicate in any way how they are contributing to district goals for highneed students as opposed to meeting the basic legal requirement to provide standards-aligned By “high-need students,” we refer to those low-income, English Learner and foster youth students that the funding law recognizes as “unduplicated pupils” who generate additional supplemental and concentration funds for the district. 1 3 instructional materials for all students. (See Amended LCAP “Metric: Resolution on the Sufficiency of Textbooks and Instructional Materials.”) All the changes to S&C funds in the amended LCAP are found in goal “Conditions of Learning #4” to “fully implement the Common Core Standard by the 2014-2015 school year,” which applies to “all schools districtwide.” (Amended LCAP at 16-19.) The district removed the $14.4 million in S&C allocated to Employee Benefits under “General Administration and Other Services” in the June 23, 2016 LCAP and the reference to pension reform contributions. (Id. at 18.) Meanwhile, under “Instruction-Related Services,” classified salaries increased from $46,000 to $12 million in S&C and employee benefits increased from $146,000 to $2.5 million in S&C. We assume these increased expenditures are to provide “Supplemental Educational Supports for Unduplicated Pupils” as this language was added to the amended LCAP. (Id. at 17.) The total increase of $14.5 million in S&C funds appears to offset the $14.4 million in S&C previously allocated to “General Administration and Other Services” employee benefits, which has been reduced to $0. To explain this significant increased investment under “InstructionRelated Services” in “Supplemental Educational Supports for Unduplicated Pupils”—a 75-fold or 7,500% increase in expenditures to this action—the district added a single clause (“as well as supports that enable differentiation, particularly for unduplicated pupils”) at the end of an entire paragraph that describes how funds will be used to increase the quality of classroom instruction for all students. (Id.) Under “General Administration and Other Services,” the district maintained its expenditure of $7 million in certificated salaries and added some explanation that this investment will benefit high-need students by stating that the use of S&C funds for certificated salaries is because “LBUSD has a high teacher retention rate for an urban district” and that this “directly enhances the services provided at high-need schools.” (Id. at 18.) As discussed further below, the district’s justifications do not appear to meet the bar set for across-the-board salary increases by the LCFF regulations and guidance issued by the State Superintendent of Public Instruction. C. The District Does Not Appear to Meet Its Obligation to Proportionally Increase and Improve Services for High-Need Students Given that Some $40 Million in Districtwide S&C Expenditures Are Not Adequately Justified. While districts have flexibility in how they allocate S&C funds, these targeted dollars must be allocated to “increase or improve services for unduplicated pupils as compared to the services provided to all pupils.” 5 CCR § 15496(a); Educ. Code § 42238.07. “[T]o increase or improve services” means “to grow services in quality [or] quantity,” and districts must demonstrate this growth in their LCAP. § 15495(f)-(g); see LCAP Template. When S&C funds are spent on a districtwide basis, the district has an additional burden of explaining how these expenditures are “principally directed towards, and are effective in, meeting the district’s goals” for high-need students. § 15496(b)(2)(B). In other words, high-need student needs should be at the fore of the district’s planning in its districtwide spending of S&C funds; they should not be an afterthought or an incidental consideration. Explanations about how S&C funds will “increase or improve” 4 services for high-need students, and about how districtwide expenditures are “principally directed towards, and are effective” for high-need students are required in Section 3 of the 201617 LCAP (and the “Demonstration of Increased or Improved Services for Unduplicated Pupils” section of the most recently revised LCAP template2). Unfortunately, even as amended, LBUSD’s plan to spend over $40 million on textbooks, technology, staff salaries and benefits is still not justified per the LCFF regulations, and thus constitutes an unlawful expenditure of S&C funds. Moreover, by failing to adequately justify some $40 million out of a total of $108 million in S&C funds being spent districtwide for all students (some 37%), the district does not meet its obligation to demonstrate how it is increasing and improving services for high-need students in proportion to the funds that they generate. 1. The District Fails to Adequately Justify $19.5 Million in Districtwide Textbook and Technology S&C Expenditures. LBUSD’s allocation of $17 million in S&C funds for Common Core State Standards (CCSS) aligned textbooks and instructional materials and $2.5 million in S&C funds for the district’s technology infrastructure do not clearly “increase or improve” services for high-need students as compared to all students. The district also fails to justify these expenditures as “principally directed towards,” or “effective in” meeting the district’s goals for high-need students. Implementation of the Common Core is a requirement of all districts for all students, and LBUSD does not provide any explanation in its description of these actions (in Section 2 or Section 3 of the Amended LCAP) for how spending S&C funds on Common-Core aligned materials might “increase or improve” services for high-need students as compared to their middle-income and native-English-speaking peers. As mentioned above, it only asserts without support or demonstration that the CCSS instructional materials “enhance[] access to the core curriculum and close[] achievement gaps” and “help … reach disadvantaged students. (Amended LCAP at 12) This cursory rationale does not suffice as justification for how these investments fundamentally required for all students are “principally directed towards” and are “effective” in meeting the district’s goals for high-need students. Similarly, the district’s general assertion that the technology “enhancements strengthen college and career readiness efforts” is directed equally to all students and lacks any supplemental intent or effect on high-need students. (Id.) Thus, it is impossible to tell from the Amended LCAP what instructional materials and technology are being supported by this $19.5 million in S&C funds and how these are principally directed toward and effective in addressing district goals for high-need students as the LCFF regulations require. The district provides no metrics specific to high-need students against which to measure these significant investments, using the same broad measure—“100% compliance with the instructional materials requirements”—which is a basic requirement that appears to apply equally to all students. Despite increased proposed spending on textbooks of over $5 million in S&C from the 2015-2016 school year, the 2016-2017 LCAP does not explain how this increased investment will increase or improve services or increase measurable outcome metrics in any way for unduplicated students. The district has failed to justify the districtwide use of S&C funds as required by LCFF. See 5 CCR § 15496(b)(2)(B). 2 www.cde.ca.gov/fg/aa/lc/documents/approvedlcaptemplate.doc. 5 2. The District Fails to Adequately Justify $21.4 Million in S&C Spending on Districtwide Classified and Certificated Salaries and Benefits as Increased or Improved Services for High-Need Students. LBUSD does not demonstrate how its allocation of $21.4 million in S&C funds for staff salaries and benefits under its Condition of Learning #4 goal “increases or improves” services for highneed students. The total S&C funds the district allocates across these actions is significant: $21.4 million amounts to nearly 20% of the district’s total S&C funds for the 2016-2017 school year. Over the next three years, the district plans to spend $82.4 million in S&C funds on employee salaries and benefits. (LBUSD Amended LCAP, at 90-91.) In addition, the district fails to justify these districtwide expenditures as “principally directed towards,” or “effective in,” meeting the district’s goals for high-need students. From the descriptions provided, there is no demonstration that the increased funding is providing any new or improved services. The LCAP simply reflects an increased cost for the same level of service (i.e., an across-the-board salary or benefits increase). Complainants certainly support teachers and classified staff being fairly and competitively compensated and recognize that California underfunds its schools and its teachers. Generally, however, salary expenditures for core instructional and administrative staff should be supported with base funds, not the marginal portion of the district’s budget represented by S&C funds. The State Superintendent’s analysis of the expenditure of S&C funds on districtwide teacher salary increases, consistent with the LCFF regulations, recognizes that salary increases supported by S&C funds allocated districtwide (and not to particular staff positions) do not necessarily bring any increase or improvement of services to high-need students as compared to their middle-income and native-English-speaking peers.3 A district’s burden of proving such an increase or improvement is, as noted by the State Superintendent, highly dependent on districtspecific facts around recruitment and retention and yearly reflection on the success of such investments in improving services to high-need students. The State Superintendent suggests one potential method by which a district might justify districtwide salary increases per the LCFF regulations. Per the State Superintendent, a district with 55% or more high-need students would have to, for example: (1) Document in its LCAP that: (a) it faces “difficulties in recruiting, hiring, or retaining qualified staff which adversely affects the quality of the district’s educational program, particularly for unduplicated pupils,” and (b) “that the salary increase will address these adverse impacts.” (State Superintendent Letter at 3.) (2) And, additionally document in its LCAP that it will measure the impact of its investment, to ensure the districtwide expenditure of supplemental and concentration State Superintendent Tom Torlakson’s letter to District and County Superintendents and Charter School Administrators, “Use of Local Control Funding Formula Supplemental and Concentration Grant Funds,” June 10, 2015, available at https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2096328/lcff-teacherraises-cdememottrevised061015.pdf (hereinafter “State Superintendent Letter”). 3 6 funds is in fact principally directed toward and effective in meeting its goals for highneed students. The State Superintendent suggests a district “identify … a reduction of teacher turnover and the retention of experienced classroom teachers, supported by budget expenditures from [S&C] grant funds, and describe in the LCAP how this service is principally directed toward and effective in meeting the district’s identified academic achievement goal for its unduplicated pupils.” (Id. at 3-4.) Thus, even if a district can make the necessary showing to support this use of funds initially, the district must evaluate whether its approach is effective (e.g., in terms of reducing turnover and increasing retention) in each annual update. This legal analysis of S&C spending for districtwide teacher salary increases similarly applies to districtwide increases in classified salaries and employee benefits, where it is unclear that these investments are for specific staff positions providing increased or improved services. Unfortunately, LBUSD does not appear to meet any of these requirements, for its past, present, or projected S&C spending on employee salaries and benefits. Therefore, it has failed to justify these districtwide expenditures as increased or improved services for high-need students. Indeed, to the contrary, what evidence exists in its LCAP undermines the district’s attempted use of S&C funds for teacher salaries. a. LBUSD Does Not Properly Justify $14.5 Million in Districtwide Classified Salaries and Employee Benefits. In LBUSD’s Amended LCAP, the district fails to explain how the combined expenditure of $14.5 million in classified salaries and employee benefits under “Instruction-Related Services” will “increase or improve” services for high-need students as compared to all students. Indeed, the same outcome metrics associated with the action—“Fully Implement the Common Core State Standards”—when its investment amounted to only $200,000 remain unchanged even though the investment in the action has increased 75-fold. (Compare LBUSD June 23, 2016 Adopted LCAP at 18 with Amended LCAP at 16.) Nor do these districtwide expenditures appear to be “principally directed towards” and “effective in” meeting the district’s goals for high-need students. The district only provides a cursory and vague description—added to the Amended LCAP—to justify the additional allocation of $14.5 million in S&C funds: “Supplemental Educational Supports for Unduplicated Pupils” when it notes that these funds will provide “supports that enable differentiation, particularly for unduplicated pupils.” The only measure by which to judge the effectiveness of this expanded $14.5 million investment remains unchanged: “Fully implement the Common Core State Standards.” Like the textbooks and technology outcome and metric, the district has presented identical metrics and no change in projected outcomes for the past two years. (LBUSD Sept. 15, 2015 Amended LCAP at 15; LBUSD June 17, 2014 Adopted LCAP at 12.) As such, the district presents no new metrics by which to judge the effectiveness of these very significant $14.5 million investments. No improved staff retention, no increases in experience rates, no improved educational outcomes for high-need students are asserted, much less demonstrated as likely. The district provides no further information to show the nature of these supplemental educational supports and how they will “increase or improve” the quality of services offered to high-need 7 students as compared to all students. The LCAP indicates these expenditures are at “All Schools Districtwide” and provides no evidence that they are for specific positions as opposed to general classified staff across all schools. As such, LBUSD’s Amended LCAP proves the inverse of its assertion. Because the intended outcomes are exactly the same with or without the addition of the $14.5 million in “Instruction Related Services,” the Amended LCAP reveals that no increase or improvement of services is demonstrated or even intended to flow from this new investment. While it is not entirely clear from the Amended LCAP whether the $14.5 million expenditure constitutes a salary and benefits increase, the facts presented strongly suggest and Complainants believe that is exactly what these investments are continuing to fund. Assuming such, the district provides evidence that such an expenditure would be an inappropriate use of S&C funds, regardless of whether it will increase or simply fund current districtwide salaries and benefits.4 If these significant investments are indeed for districtwide salary and benefit increases, the LCAP contains no evidence that LBUSD faces difficulties in recruiting and retaining classified staff or that its benefits package is negatively affecting high-need students in such a way to justify the notion that a general across-the-board investment in classified staff will principally serve highneed student goals. In Section 3(A), where LBUSD is required to provide a description of and a justification for any supplemental and concentration funds used in a districtwide manner, the district does not mention these expenditures on classified salaries and employee benefits. Instead it seeks to provide a blanket justification for all its districtwide S&C spending: The Districtwide expenditures laid out in the LCAP are available broadly, but the services are principally directed towards and are proving effective in meeting the District’s goals for its unduplicated students. Many students who do not fall into the unduplicated category do not need these services and therefore, do not avail themselves of these services. These services, therefore, are principally directed towards those who need it, and partakers of these services are self-selecting. (Amended LCAP, Section 3(A)). This logic, of course, cannot apply to districtwide expenditures on salaries and benefits, which without further explanation, are provided to all staff, and thus all students, equally. Thus, neither the description provided in Section 2 nor the blanket justification provided in Section 3 properly demonstrate how such a large amount of S&C funds will principally serve high-need student goals let alone be effective in doing so.5 4 Both classified and certificated staff salaries and benefit packages increased in LBUSD during the 2015-2016 school year: see http://www.lbusd.k12.ca.us/Departments/Employee_Relations_Services/bargaining.cfm, accessed Feb. 24, 2017. We have reason to believe these expenses include pension contributions, because pensions were explicitly funded last year (LBUSD Amended LCAP at 91-92) and are referenced also in this year’s plan (“teachers and other education professionals decide whether to remain in LBUSD…” considering “salary, benefits, size and strength of pension shortfalls.” Id. at 18.) 5 The fact that the $14.5 million for salaries and benefits roughly corresponds to the $14.4 million in CalSTRS contributions that was removed from the initial LCAP begs the question as to whether these are genuinely different expenditures than what was identified in the initial LCAP and why the pension contributions disappeared altogether from the plan, as opposed to simply changing the funding source. The district is clearly, directly or indirectly, funding its across-the-board rising pension costs with supplemental and concentration funds. 8 b. LBUSD Does Not Properly Justify $7 Million in S&C Spending on Certificated Salaries. Additionally, the district does not demonstrate that it meets the narrow circumstances for the $7 million S&C expenditure for certificated salaries under “General Administration and Other Services.” As stated by the State Superintendent, to use S&C funds for across-theboard teacher salaries, the district should document its “low salaries” and how these result “in difficulties in recruiting, hiring and retaining qualified staff which adversely affects the quality of the district’s educational program, particularly for unduplicated pupils.” (State Superintendent Letter at 3). While it is not clear from the LBUSD LCAP whether the $7 million expenditure constitutes a salary increase, the district provides evidence that such an expenditure would be an inappropriate use of S&C funds, regardless of whether it will increase or simply fund current districtwide certificated salaries. Rather than demonstrating it has a teacher quality problem, LBUSD acknowledges that it “has a high teacher retention rate for an urban district.” (Amended LCAP at 19) This fact is substantiated by LBUSD’s already relatively high teacher salaries: during the academic year of 2014-15, the average teacher salary in Long Beach Unified was $89,000—over $12,000 more than both the statewide average and several urban districts with similar student populations.6 Thus, under the State Superintendent’s analysis and a plain reading of the LCFF regulations, this $7 million expenditure does not “increase or improve services” for high-need students as compared to all students. At most, it is designed to maintain a general level of service for all students across the board. As well, the $7 million in teacher salaries does not appear to be “principally directed toward” meeting the district’s goals for high-need students. In its amended LCAP the district states that it “strives to create an environment of short- and long-term fiscal stability … which subsequently benefits students, particularly unduplicated pupils.” (Amended LCAP at 19) This reasoning reads as though high-need students are downstream, incidental beneficiaries of this expenditure, rather than the impetus behind it. Under this seriously flawed rationale, nearly any districtwide expenditure could be justified as “principally directed” and “effective.” Moreover, the district fails to prove the effectiveness of this service. The district states that its “high teacher retention rate … directly enhances the services provided at high-need schools,” but it does not explain how high-need students are affected, or how they will be affected after teachers are supported by additional S&C funds above and beyond how they, like all students, have already been affected by the district’s existing high retention rates. (Amended LCAP at 19) Again, the only measure for the goal associated with this action is to “Fully implement the Common Core State Standards”, which is itself a general goal applicable to all students. The district also offers “The Broad Prize” from 13 years ago, as well as “other external evaluators” to prove that funding high teacher salaries will “narrow the achievement gap over time.” (Id.) This metric and evidence is simply too broad and outdated to be applicable. LBUSD does not face “difficulties in recruiting, hiring or retaining qualified staff,” and therefore cannot justify the 6 See http://www.ed-data.org/district/Los-Angeles/Long-Beach-Unified, accessed Feb. 24, 2017. The average teacher salary in neighboring LA Unified was $73,658, in similarly sized San Diego Unified was $76,603. See http://www.ed-data.org/district/Los-Angeles/Los-Angeles-Unified and http://www.ed-data.org/district/SanDiego/San-Diego-Unified, accessed Feb. 24, 2017 9 expenditure of $7 million in precious S&C dollars on teacher salaries. (State Superintendent Letter at 3.) Despite significantly higher teacher salaries, which the district claims directly enhance the education of high-need students, disparities in student achievement in LBUSD are glaring. In 2016, only 37% of low-income students in LBUSD met or exceeded the English Language Arts (ELA) standards, and 28% met or exceeded the state standards in math, while 63% and 50% of middle class students met or exceeded the standards in ELA/math, respectively. White students in LBUSD are four times more likely than their African-American and Latino counterparts to be meeting the state’s academic standards. In addition, English-only students are 6 times more likely than their English Learner counterparts to be meeting the standards.7 These disparate results are similar to those experienced by these student groups across the state.8 Because the district has not explained how this supplemental and concentration spending on teacher salaries is principally directed to high-need student goals or effective, the district has failed to justify this spending as an increased or improved service. We urge the district to instead fund its teacher salaries with the substantial base funds that the district receives. 3. Relief Requested Children’s Defense Fund-California, Latinos in Action, Ms. Roman, and Ms. Luna urge LBUSD to amend its 2016-17 LCAP to demonstrate that it is meeting its proportionality obligation to increase and improve services for high-need students and to reallocate unjustified expenditures of as much as $40 million to comply with the spirit and the letter of the LCFF statute and regulations. If the district believes it can justify the expenditure of S&C funds on classified salaries and employee benefits, the district should amend its LCAP to provide this legally required rationale, consistent with the LCFF regulations and the State Superintendent’s guidance. Given salary data for certificated staff, however, it does not appear possible for the district to spend $7 million in S&C funds on teacher salaries without providing some additional service that will principally serve high-need pupil goals. Complainants urge the district to cover the unjustified portion of the $21.4 million in salary and benefit obligations through base or other funding sources, and reallocate that amount to services that will truly “increase or improve” services to high-need students. Likewise, the district must demonstrate how the significant spending on Common Core materials and technology provide a 7 71% of White students met or exceeded the ELA standards in 2016 and 60% met or exceeded the standards in math. By comparison, only 34% of Black students and 39% of Latino students met or exceeded the standards in ELA and only 20% of Blacks and 27% of Latinos met or exceeded in math. 70% of English-Only students met or exceeded the standards in ELA and 58% met or exceeded the standards in math, whereas only 13% of ELs met or exceeded the standards in ELA and 11% met or exceeded the standards in math. See http://caaspp.cde.ca.gov/sb2016/ViewReport?ps=true&lstTestYear=2016&lstTestType=B&lstGroup=4&lstCounty= 19&lstDistrict=64725-000&lstSchool=0000000, accessed Nov. 23, 2016. 8 Comparing the 2016 performance of low-income students in LBUSD to their performance in districts with a similar unduplicated student count (within 5 percentage points) and as similar as possible overall enrollment (above 25,000 students), LBUSD achievement is above Lodi Unified (avg. salary $70,254) and Sacramento City Unified (avg. salary $70,343) and is similar to Desert Sands Unified (avg. salary $83,664), Riverside Unified (avg. salary $87,199), San Francisco Unified (avg. salary $67,537), and Visalia Unified ($71,211). See CAASPP scores, at http://caaspp.cde.ca.gov/sb2016/Search and EdData, at http://www.ed-data.org/Comparisons?compType=districts. 10 growth in services for high-need students as opposed to all students, or else reallocate that $19.5 million in S&C funds towards genuinely new or better services. Such reallocations should take place with community input, as required by Cal. Educ. Code § 52062(c). For the 2017-18 LCAP and all future LCAPs, the district should ensure that it properly demonstrates how it is increasing and improving services for high-need students in keeping with its minimum proportionality percentage, including providing all required justifications of districtwide and schoolwide S&C expenditures. Please address these important issues immediately and no later than 60 days from today. We remain available to collaborate with the district as it seeks to resolve these concerns. Sincerely, Angelica K. Jongco Senior Staff Attorney Public Advocates ajongco@publicadvocates.org CC: Paulina Almanza Law Fellow Public Advocates palmanza@publicadvocates.org Board of Education Members, c/o Leticia Rodriguez, Executive Secretary, LBUSD Board of Education, lrodriguez@lbschool.net Brent North, North, Nash & Abendroth LLP, bnorth@north-nash.com Debra Duardo, Superintendent, Los Angeles County Office of Education, Duardo_Debra@lacoe.edu Enclosures 11 ATTACHMENT 1 Board of Governors Joan Harrington, Chair Santa Clara University School of Law Fred W. Alvarez Jones Day Alina Ball UC Hastings College of the Law Barbara J. Chisholm Altshuler Berzon LLP Martin R. Glick Arnold & Porter LLP Bruce Ives LifeMoves Dolores Jimenez Kaiser Permanente Leo P. Martinez UC Hastings College of the Law Anita D. Stearns Mayo Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP Robert H. Olson Squire Patton Boggs (retired) Rohit K. Singla Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP Abdi Soltani ACLU of Northern California Staff Guillermo Mayer President & CEO John T. Affeldt Richard A. Marcantonio Managing Attorneys Isabel Alegría Director of Communication Liz Guillen Director of Legislative & Community Affairs Deborah Harris Director of Development Sumi Paik Director of Finance & Administration Angelica K. Jongco Samuel Tepperman-Gelfant Senior Staff Attorneys Rigel S. Massaro Chelsea Tu David Zisser Staff Attorneys Michelle Pariset Policy Advocate Anne Bellows Attorney & Equal Justice Works Fellow Angela Perry Law Fellow Patty Leal Finance Manager Karem Herrera Legal Administrative Coordinator Tia Nguyen Administrative Assistant Madelyn Wargowski Development & Administrative Assistant Jesse White Communication Coordinator     June  6,  2016     Via  Electronic  Mail     Superintendent  Christopher  Steinhauser   Long  Beach  Unified  School  District  Board  of  Education   Long  Beach  Unified  School  District   1515  Hughes  Way   Long  Beach,  CA  90810   cstein@lbschools.net     Board  of  Education  via  Executive  Secretary  lrodriguez@lbschools.net       Re:  Comments  to  Draft  LBUSD’s  2016-­‐19  LCAP  and  2015-­‐16  Annual   Update     Dear  Superintendent  Steinhauser  and  LBUSD  Board  of  Education:       Public  Advocates  has  been  deeply  engaged  in  supporting  the   implementation  of  the  Local  Control  Funding  Formula  (LCFF)  in  a   way  that  makes  real  the  promise  of  increased  and  improved   resources  for  high-­‐need  students,  and  greater  transparency  and   meaningful  engagement  for  school  communities.  In  particular,  we   are  working  hard  to  ensure  that  school  districts  spend  supplemental   and  concentration  grants  to  proportionally  increase  and  improve   services  for  the  high-­‐need  students  who  generate  those  funds.   Towards  this  end,  we  are  supporting  local  districts  and  community-­‐ based  partners  in  LCFF  implementation  across  the  state.       Last  year,  Public  Advocates  conducted  a  thorough  analysis  of   Long  Beach  Unified’s  2015-­‐16  LCAP  that  highlighted  several   concerns  regarding  the  district’s  proposed  uses  of  supplemental  and   concentration  funds.1  Public  Advocates’  analysis  raised  the  following   concerns:   • Though  required,  the  district  failed  to  separately  describe  and   the  $85.8  million  in  districtwide  and  schoolwide  actions  paid   1  The  ACLU  of  Southern  California  sent  the  district  a  letter  dated  June   26,  2015,  that  also  raised  similar  concerns  regarding  the  district’s   approach  to  explaining  its  supplemental  and  concentration   expenditures  in  its  draft  LCAP.   Public Advocates Comments re LBUSD LCAP June 6, 2016 Page 2 of 7 for  with  supplemental  and  concentration  funds  and  to  justify  each  districtwide  or   schoolwide  action  as  properly  focused  on  high-­‐need  students.   • Some  $14  million  of  the  supplemental  and  concentration  funds  were  allocated  for   basic  services  and  operations—such  as  teacher  pensions,  maintenance,  campus   security  and  administration—that  do  not  appear  to  provide  any  enhanced  benefit   for  high-­‐need  students  and  are  not  supported  as  principally  directed  and  effective  in   serving  high  need  pupil  goals.   • The  District  lumped  together  multiple  separate  actions  and  expenditures  into  very   general  descriptions,  preventing  an  understanding  of  specific  actions  taken  to  meet   goals  and  their  specific  cost.     • The  District  did  not  reflect  how  school  sites  expending  some  $13.6  million  in   supplemental  and  concentration  funds  were  properly  focused  on  LCAP  goals  for   high-­‐need  students.   While  we  have  had  limited  time  to  review  LBUSD’s  2016-­‐17  LCAP  Draft  given  that  it  was   just  posted  on  June  1st,  we  write  now  to  raise  initial  concerns  with  the  draft  2016-­‐17  LCAP   that  appear  to  continue  from  the  2015-­‐16  LCAP.     In  particular,  we  remain  concerned  about  the  following  two  issues:   • The  draft  Annual  Update  fails  to  explain  large  discrepancies  in  allocating   supplemental  and  concentration  spending  or  meaningfully  discuss  implementation   of  actions;  and   • The  district  continues  significant  spending  of  supplemental  and  concentration  funds   on  districtwide  and  schoolwide  actions  that  do  not  appear  to  be  principally  directed   to  goals  for  high-­‐need  students,  for  which  the  district  has  not  demonstrated   effectiveness  of  those  actions  to  meet  high-­‐need  student  goals,  and  which  do  not   appear  to  demonstrate  a  growth  in  service  for  high-­‐need  students.     Draft  Annual  Update  fails  to  explain  large  discrepancies  in  budgeted  and  actual   supplemental  and  concentration  spending.  Throughout  the  draft  annual  update,  the   district  estimates  significant  amounts  of  supplemental  and  concentration  funds  that  were   allocated  but  not  spent.  Yet  the  district  fails  to  provide  an  explanation  for  these   discrepancies  or  explain  how  those  unspent  funds  were  used.  These  discrepancies  include   the  following:   - Conditions  of  Learning  Goal  #2  –  Adopt,  replace  and/or  provide  sufficient  textbooks   and  instructional  materials  that  align  with  Common  Core:  LBUSD  budgeted  $12   million  in  supplemental  and  concentration  dollars  under  this  action  item  and   estimates  spending  around  $2.1  million  (p.80);   - Conditions  of  Learning  Goal  #4  –  General  Administration  and  Other  Services;  the   district  budgeted  $15,000,000  in  supplemental  and  concentration  funds  for   Employee  Benefits  and  estimates  spending  $9  million  (p.84);   - Conditions  of  Learning  Goal  #4  –  School  site  allocations  for  implementation  of   Common  Core  State  Standards.  Again,  this  included  a  large  allocation  of   supplemental  and  concentration  dollars  for  books  and  supplies  ($14  million)  when   estimated  spending  is  around  $1.6  million.  Other  expenditures,  including  salaries   Public Advocates Comments re LBUSD LCAP June 6, 2016 Page 3 of 7 and  benefits  were  higher  than  budgeted,  although  nowhere  close  to  accounting  for   the  discrepancy  in  books  and  supplies  (p.85);   - Conditions  of  Learning  Goal  #4  –  Budgeted  actions  for  strategic  and  systematic   assistance  to  schools  to  advance  Common  Core  implementation  included  $3.7   million  in  supplemental  and  concentration  funds  for  books  and  supplies  when   $243,000  was  estimated  as  actually  spent  (p.86);   - Engagement  Goal  #1  –  Budgeted  actions  and  services  for  parent  engagement  and   outreach  supports  differ  greatly,  including  more  than  $350,000  less  for  books  and   supplies  and  almost  $90,000  less  for  “Svcs/Other”  (p.114).     These  are  just  several  examples  of  large  discrepancies  in  estimated  actual  spending   of  supplemental  and  concentration  dollars  versus  budget  spending,  and  yet  they  total  more   than  $30  million  in  supplemental  and  concentration  funds,  which  the  district  does  not   account  for  in  its  Annual  Update.  Putting  aside  our  concern  that  some  of  these  expenditures   were  not  properly  designated  and  justified  for  supplemental  and  concentration  spending  in   the  2015-­‐16  LCAP,  this  nonetheless  raises  serious  questions  about  how  the  district  spent   those  dollars  and  whether  it  met  its  minimum  obligation  in  the  2015-­‐16  fiscal  year  to   increase  and  improve  services  for  high-­‐need  students  as  compared  to  all  students  in   proportion  to  the  supplemental  and  concentration  funding  they  generate  for  the  district.   See  Educ.  Code  42238.07;  5  CCR  15496(a).     Rather  than  explaining  these  discrepancies,  the  district  generically  reports  for  every   action  in  its  Annual  Update  that  “[t]he  actions/services  were  implemented  largely  as   planned.”  Such  cursory  reporting  raises  concerns  about  whether  the  district  is  reflecting  on   the  Guiding  Questions  to  leverage  the  Annual  Update  process  as  a  tool  for  continuous   improvement.    (See  Guiding  Questions  on  p.78.).     We  urge  the  district  to  revise  the  Annual  Update  to—as  the  guiding  questions   indicate—identify  “differences  …  between  budgeted  expenditures  and  estimated  actual   annual  expenditures”  and  “the  reasons  for  any  differences.”  (See  p.78.)  To  the  extent  that   the  district  did  not  spend  a  significant  portion  of  its  supplemental  and  concentration  funds   for  the  2015-­‐16  years  towards  increasing  and  improving  services  for  high-­‐need  students,   we  urge  the  district  to  carry  this  spending  forward  into  the  2016-­‐17  school  year  to  ensure   that  high-­‐need  students  benefit  from  the  funding  that  they  generate  for  the  district.     Critical  importance  of  identifying  and  justifying  separately  each  districtwide  and   schoolwide  use  of  supplemental  and  concentration  funds.  We  again  want  to  call  your   attention  to  the  important  requirement  in  the  LCAP  Template  Section  3A  that  districts  must   describe  “the  use  of  any  funds  in  a  districtwide  [or]  schoolwide”  manner  and  justify  each   such  use  according  the  LCFF  regulations.  In  a  district  such  as  Long  Beach  Unified  that  has   more  than  55%  high-­‐need  students,  the  district  must  justify  a  districtwide  expenditure  as   “principally  directed”  to  one  or  more  of  the  district’s  goals  for  high-­‐need  students.    5  CCR   15496(b).  2   2  In  our  extensive  reviews  of  LCAPs  over  the  past  two  years,  our  organizations  have  found   that  many  LEAs  were  confused  by  Section  3  of  the  LCAP.  Public  Advocates  teamed  up  with   Public Advocates Comments re LBUSD LCAP June 6, 2016 Page 4 of 7   In  Section  3A  of  the  draft  LCAP  (p.  132),  the  District  explains  more  than  $108  million   in  supplemental  and  concentration  spending  in  a  summary  fashion  rather  than  separately   describing  each  districtwide  use  of  funds  to  justify  how  it  is  principally  directed  to  its  goals   for  high-­‐need  students.  In  other  words,  high-­‐need  students  are  a  forethought,  not  an  after   thought  or  equal  thought  to  all  students.       In  addition,  the  District  must  explain  in  Section  3A  how  that  use  of  funds  is  “effective   in”  meeting  its  identified  LCAP  goal  for  high-­‐need  students.  To  the  extent  the  District  is   continuing  to  fund  the  same  actions  from  the  prior  LCAP  year,  it  should  point  to  evidence   or  data  to  demonstrate  effectiveness.  Or  else  one  would  expect  to  see  in  the  Annual  Update   “an  assessment  of  the  effectiveness  of  the  specific  actions”  as  the  instructions  require.   (p.78).  Instead,  the  district  takes  a  plenary  approach  to  justifying  its  districtwide  spending,   citing  to  “The  Broad  Prize  and  corroborated  scholarly  research”  to  assert  that  “a   districtwide  approach  is  a  proven  strategy  for  organizations  like  LBUSD,  where  students   and  families  have  high  rates  of  mobility  and  school  choice.”  (p.132.)  However,  this   explanation  fails  to  address  how  the  district  has  determined  that  the  specific  actions  and   services  that  the  district  is  funding  are  effective  in  serving  high-­‐need  students.  And  a  review   of  the  district’s  reporting  on  these  actions  in  the  Annual  Update  does  not  provide  an   assessment  of  the  effectiveness  of  the  specific  actions  in  question.     In  Section  2  of  the  LCAP,  the  district  does  provide  some  limited  explanation  of   certain  districtwide  supplemental  and  concentration  allocations,  but  these  justifications   still  do  not  meet  the  legal  requirements  in  terms  of  explaining  how  they  are  principally   directed  and  effective  under  LCFF  regulations.     By  failing  to  separately  identify  the  specific  districtwide  and  schoolwide  uses  of   supplemental  and  concentration  funds,  the  public  cannot  determine  if  cumulatively,  the   district  is  providing  an  “increase  or  improvement”  in  services  to  high-­‐need  students  as   compared  to  all  students  in  proportion  to  the  additional  funds  those  students  generate  as   required  by  the  law  and  regulations.  The  regulations  define  an  “increase  or  improvement”   in  services  as  a  “growth  in  quantity”  or  “quality”  of  the  service.  5  CCR  15945(k)  &  (l).     We  had  concerns  about  the  following  uses  of  funds  in  the  2015-­‐16  LCAP,  which   appear  to  be  continuing  in  the  draft  2016-­‐19  LCAP:     the  Sacramento  County  Office  of  Education  to  provide  training  and  best  practices  on  the   proper  uses  and  reporting  of  supplemental  and  concentration  funds  at  a  joint  gathering  of   more  than  40  counties  across  the  state,  including  the  Los  Angeles  County  Office  of   Education.  For  your  information,  those  training  materials  are  available  at   http://bit.ly/PA_Sec3_Training  and  the  Sacramento  County  Office  of  Education  website  at   https://www.scoe.net/lcap/training/Pages/default.aspx.  See  also  One-­‐Pager  on  Section  3   Requirements  at  http://bit.ly/LCAP3A_3B_1-­‐pager  and  Guiding  Questions  on  the  Use  of   Supplemental  &  Concentration  Funds  at  http://bit.ly/5_Questions_on_SC_Funds.       Public Advocates Comments re LBUSD LCAP June 6, 2016 Page 5 of 7 • $21.4  Million  in  Supplemental  and  Concentration  Funds  for  Teacher  Pension   Reform  Contributions  &  Certificated  Salaries.3  This  combined  expenditure  of  $14.4   million  in  employee  benefits  and  $7  million  in  certificated  salaries  is  an  increase  over   the  estimated  $9  million  of  supplemental  and  concentration  funds  the  district  estimates   spending  on  employee  benefits  in  this  action  item  in  2015-­‐16  per  its  Annual  Update   (p.84).  As  with  last  year,  this  service  appears  to  be  an  across-­‐the  board  allocation  that   does  not  seem  to  be  “principally  directed”  to  unduplicated  pupil  goals  or  to  increase  or   improve  services  for  high-­‐need  students  as  compared  to  all  students.  Whether  in  the   form  of  increased  salary  or  benefits,  the  underlying  services  provided  from  the  teachers   do  not  grow  in  any  way.  They  are  the  same,  just  more  costly.    Nor  do  the  services   appear  to  provide  any  type  of  enhanced  benefit  to  high-­‐need  students  as  compared  to   all  students.  The  district  must  justify  in  Section  3.A  how  this  use  of  funds  is  principally   directed  to  its  goals  for  high-­‐need  students  and  also  how  that  use  of  funds  is  effective.     Given  that  the  district  spent  $9  million  in  supplemental  and  concentration  funds  on  this   action  last  year,  it  should  have  some  basis  for  proposing  to  increase  this  expense  in  the   coming  year.  In  Section  2,  the  district  merely  repeats  the  same  explanation  from  its   prior  LCAP  that  overall  compensation  is  an  important  component  to  attracting  and   retaining  highly  qualified  teachers  without  providing  further  evidence  to  show  that  the   item  has  been  demonstrably  effective  in  serving  high-­‐need  student  goals,  for  example  in   terms  of  impacting  teacher  recruitment  and  retention  in  a  way  that  is  “positively   impact[ing]  the  neediest  students”  as  the  district  suggests  is  its  goal.     Moreover,  in  Section  3.B,  where  the  district  describes  how  it  is  meeting  its  minimum   obligation  to  proportionally  increase  or  improve  services  for  high-­‐need  students  as   compared  to  all  students,  the  district  must  justify  how  this  proposed  expense,  which   amounts  to  some  20%  of  its  anticipated  supplemental  and  concentration  funds,  is   providing  a  growth  in  services  for  high-­‐need  students.  If  it  cannot  meet  these   requirements,  the  district  should  discontinue  funding  this  expenditure  from   supplemental  and  concentration  funds.   Finally,  this  is  also  an  example  of  the  district’s  practice  of  lumping  several  different   expenditures  (General  Administration,  Enterprise  (Health  Benefit  Administration),   Other  Outgo  (Insurance),  Contributions  (Special  Education  Support,  etc.)  and  CalSTRS   pension  reform  contributions)  into  one  action  item,  which  obscures  fiscal  transparency   regarding  how  these  funds  are  being  allocated.  This  concern  is  discussed  further  in  the   next  bulleted  point.   3  See  p.  16  of  draft  LCAP.  Based  on  the  district’s  initial  draft  2016-­‐17  budget  summary   document,  this  amount  was  initially  listed  as  $21.4  million  in  supplemental  and   concentration  funds  just  for  teacher  pensions.  It  now  appears  to  be  distributed  across   Supplemental  and  Concentration  funds  for  both  salary  and  employee  benefits.  There  are   also  separate  allocations  to  base  across  various  spending  categories.  We  would  like  to   understand  the  rationale  for  this  distribution.     Public Advocates Comments re LBUSD LCAP June 6, 2016 Page 6 of 7 • Millions  of  Dollars  in  Supplemental  and  Concentration  Funds  for  Expenditures   that  Do  Not  Appear  to  Be  Principally  Directed  to  High-­‐Need  Student  Goals.4  The   district  again  takes  the  approach  of  lumping  numerous  disparate,  districtwide   expenditures  together  in  the  same  action  item  and  then  failing  to  provide  the  required   justification  for  this  spending.  For  example,  the  district  continues  to  allocate  the   following  services  under  a  single  action  item  that  includes:  “Community  and  Ancillary   Services  (Recreation  Aides,  etc.);  Student  Advisory  resources;  Teaching  Gardens;   Campus  security/police  support;  and  Administrative  services  and  contracts  (e.g.,   Most  Inspiring  Students)”  and  then  to  report  the  budgeted  expenditures  as  lump  sums   across  all  these  items.  For  supplemental  and  concentration  spending,  this  amounts  to   $1.4  million  for  classified  salaries,  $941,900  for  employee  benefits  $595,000  for  books   and  supplies,  and  $3.2  million  for  “Svcs/Other”  (a  significant  increase  over  the  prior   year  allocation)  (p.76).  Without  further  explanation  as  to  how  the  spending  is   distributed  among  base  and  supplemental  and  concentration  funds  and  across  specific   services  in  the  action  item,  as  well  as  how  each  of  these  proposed  expenditures  are   principally  directed  to  the  needs  of  unduplicated  pupils  in  particular,  each  of  these   examples  appear  to  be  funding  for  core  services  that  provide  the  same  level  of  service   to  all  students  and  do  not  appear  directed  to  high-­‐need  students  as  the  primary   beneficiaries.   Another  significant  expenditure  of  supplemental  and  concentration  funds  that  does  not   appear  principally  directed  to  high-­‐need  student  goals  is  some  $17  million  in   supplemental  and  concentration  funds  for  instructional  materials  aligned  with   the  Common  Core  (pp.11-­‐12).  While  the  district  states  that  these  “materials…play  a   vital  role  in  …  closing  achievement  gaps,”  without  further  explanation  of  how  this   significant  expense,  which  is  essential  to  the  district’s  core  instructional  program  for  all   students  is  principally  directed  to  high-­‐need  student  goals,  it  appears  to  be  an   expenditure  that  should  be  from  base  funding.5  Further,  the  amount  of  funds  appears   out  of  line  with  what  the  district  actually  spent  in  2015-­‐16:  Whereas  the  district   4  Note  that  the  district’s  draft  Budget  Summary  for  the  2016-­‐17  Revised  Plan  provided  a   slightly  different  breakdown  of  this  spending  than  the  district’s  LCAP.  Based  on  that  budget   summary,  there  were  a  number  of  expenditures  that  did  not  appear  to  be  principally   directed  towards  high-­‐need  student  goals.  These  include  some  $3  million  in  “campus   security  and  police  support,”  $4.16  million  in  “administrative  services  and  contracts,”  and   $463,000  in  “maintenance  projects  at  sites”  that  are  each  described  as  providing  “general   support  to  schools  in  their  efforts  to  implement  the  LCAP.”    In  addition,  LBUSD  allocates   $3.1  million  to  “provide  additional  support  to  teachers,  classified  staff,  managers,  and   administrators,”  $1.45  million  to  “Provide  strategic  and  systematic  assistance  to  schools   (Board  of  Education  initiatives),”  $900,000  to  “Provide  strategic  and  systematic  assistance   to  schools  (Level  Office  supports),”  $5.1  million  to  “Provide  textbooks  and  instructional   materials  in  alignment  with  Common  Core,”  and  $2.5  million  “for  the  replenishment  of   equipment  and  computers.”  It  is  unclear  to  us  upon  our  preliminary  review,  which  of  this   spending  is  incorporated  into  the  draft  plan.   5  Indeed  the  district  states  in  its  Annual  Update  that  “[t]extbook  adoptions  in  alignment   with  Common  Core  are  necessary,  so  LBUSD  plans  to  invest  in  instructional  materials.”   (p.81).   Public Advocates Comments re LBUSD LCAP June 6, 2016 Page 7 of 7 budgeted  some  $12  million  in  supplemental  and  concentration  funds  to  this  same   action  last  year,  it  estimates  only  spending  some  $2.1  million  in  these  funds  (p.80).   Without  explanation  for  this  discrepancy  and  how  this  action  was  effective  in  2015-­‐16   despite  this  significant  underspending,  the  significant  increase  in  spending  does  not   appear  to  be  justified.   • Supplemental  and  Concentration  Funds  Directly  to  School  Sites  Without  Further   Detail.  As  a  general  matter,  sending  supplemental  and  concentration  funds  directly  to   school  sites  with  high-­‐need  students  can  be  an  effective  way  to  serve  these  students,   but  only  if  proper  attention  is  paid  to  ensure  that  low-­‐income,  English  learner  and   foster  youth  students  are  being  well-­‐served  through  the  use  of  those  funds  at  the  school   site.  In  the  2016-­‐19  LCAP,  the  district  continues  its  practice  of  designating  significant   spending  to  school  sites  without  providing  the  amount  of  supplemental  and   concentration  funding  each  designated  school  would  receive.  While  the  district   generally  explains  that  funds  are  being  provided  to  the  schools  “identified  as  high-­‐need   schools,”  and  provides  a  listing  of  those  schools  (p.132),  the  district  does  not  explain  the   amount  of  funding  each  school  will  receive,  nor  does  it  articulate  how  it  will  ensure   those  schools  properly  use  those  funds  in  service  of  high-­‐need  student  goals  according   to  LCFF  regulations.  5  CCR  15496(b).     The  lack  of  transparency  also  raises  questions  about  whether  the  district  is  meeting  its   obligation  to  proportionally  increase  and  improve  services  for  high-­‐need  students.  We   urge  the  district  to  ensure  that  its  2016-­‐17  LCAP  provides  more  specific  information   about  how  supplemental  and  concentration  dollars  sent  to  school  sites  will  be  spent.   Where  that  spending  is  schoolwide,  the  district  must  be  sure  to  properly  justify  that   spending  according  to  the  regulations.  The  current  justification  that  “assistance  to  high-­‐ need  schools  has  a  direct  relationship  with  assistance  to  English  Learners,”  without   more  guidance  about  how  schools  are  spending  the  funds,  is  insufficient  under  LCFF   regulations  (p.  132.)     In  addition,  we  would  have  expected  to  see  some  accounting  and  explanation  in  the   Annual  Update  on  the  expenditure  of  these  funds  (which  amounted  to  more  than  $13   million  in  the  2015-­‐16  school  year),  but  the  district  merely  provides  the  generic   explanation  that  “actions/services  were  implemented  largely  as  planned.”     We  are  happy  to  provide  support  to  you  or  answer  any  questions  you  may  have   about  these  matters.  We  hope  to  see  the  above  recommendations  incorporated  in  the  final   LCAP  that  the  Board  will  adopt.    If  you  have  any  questions  or  if  we  can  be  of  any  assistance   as  the  District  finalizes  the  LCAP,  please  do  not  hesitate  to  contact  us  at  the  information   provided  below.       Sincerely,     Angelica  K.  Jongco   Senior  Staff  Attorney     Public Advocates Comments re LBUSD LCAP June 6, 2016 Page 8 of 7   Public  Advocates  Inc.   ajongco@publicadvocates.org   415-­‐431-­‐7430  x  306       cc:   Leticia  Rodriguez,  Executive  Secretary,  LBUSD  Board  of  Education,   lrodriguez@lbschool.net     Olivia  Fuentes,  Los  Angeles  County  Office  of  Education,  fuentes_olivia@lacoe.edu       ATTACHMENT 2 North, Nash & Abendroth LLP 2 Park Plaza, Suite 1020 Irvine, CA 92614 (949) 752-2200 (949) 752-2230 (Fax) July 21, 2016 OUR FILE NUMBER 12001-007 WRITER’S DIRECT DIAL: (949) 752-2219 VIA E-MAIL WRITER’S E-MAIL ADDRESS bnorth@north-nash.com Angelica K. Jongco, Esq. Senior Staff Attorney Public Advocates ajongco@publicadvocates.org RE: Long Beach Unified School District LCAP Dear Ms. Jongco, Esq.: I write to respond to your June 6, 2016 correspondence to the Superintendent and Board of Education for the Long Beach Unified School District (“LBUSD” or “District”). In your letter, you express reservations about the District’s Local Control Accountability Plan (“LCAP”). By legislative design, the LCAP is evolving and will continue to evolve, but any sincere effort to measure what the Education Code requires and what LBUSD’s LCAP has delivered recommends LBUSD’s efforts and results as exemplary. LBUSD’s efforts and results significantly exceeded the state’s requirements for the LCAP. The concerns expressed in your letter are editorial concerns; i.e., Public Advocates would have drafted differently, described from a different point of view, or would have approached the process differently. The LCAP is a complex document describing an infinitely more complex system of 82 schools and countless resources. The LCAP is further complicated by the clunky template that the State provided in the regulations. How to describe the education system of the District, the needs, the goals, the approach to those goals and the results is a monumental task. Recognizing the enormity of that task, the state vests the Board with a substantial amount of discretion in making editorial choices about how best to approach such descriptions. The fact that you would have penned it differently is quite natural. It is a universal and predictable experience that each of us walks out of a movie adaptation of a novel wishing that the script writer and director would have captured our vision of the narrative in the way we would have. That natural tendency to editorialize differently is normal, but it doesn’t give rise to a claim nor give grounds to demand a particular revision. The LCAP Exceeds the Statutory Requirements for the Content of the LCAP. Angelica K. Jongco, Esq., Page 2 of 6 The statute establishing the components of the original LCAP requires each school district to describe goals relative to State specified priorities and the specific actions the District will take to achieve them. Cal. Educ. Code § 52060(c). The statute detailing the components for the annual update requires (1) a review of the changes in applicability of the goals from 52060, (2) a review of progress toward the goals, an assessment of the effectiveness of the specific actions described in the existing LCAP, and a description of changes to the specific actions, and (3) a list and description of the expenditures for the fiscal year implementing the specific actions included in the LCAP and the changes to the specific actions made as a result of the reviews and assessment required by paragraphs 1 and 2. Cal. Educ Code § 52061. Both the LCAP and the annual updates contain those necessary components, plus much more. Please note that it follows the State format found in 5 CCR 15497.5, an awkward form which doesn’t lend as much clarity as other methods of reporting information might. The statutes use words like "describe" or include a "description." Public Advocate’s letter criticizes how LBUSD described what the statute calls for, but this criticism assumes that the LCAP requires more than it does. A description is not designed to be a complete reproduction or even a facsimile of that which is described. The author who describes something has to make necessary decisions about the level of detail in the description versus the usefulness of the description. When describing a complex system, there is a fundamental tradeoff between the level of detail and the usefulness of the description. Consider the art of cartography. The most accurate map of the territory containing all or even most of the features of the territory would be so large that it would fill the territory. It would be at once perfectly accurate and perfectly useless. This difficulty is captured in Bonini’s paradox which has been described as follows: “As a model of a complex system becomes more complete, it becomes less understandable. Alternatively, as a model grows more realistic, it also becomes just as difficult to understand as the real-world processes it represents." There is a reason one never sees a map with a 1:1 scale. It might achieve accuracy, but would abandon all utility, being too detailed, large and unwieldly to use for navigation. A map of a mall that includes only stores and pathways will help the average reader to orient themselves and navigate from point A to B. A map of that same mall that includes within the map wiring, plumbing, ducts, structural supports, etc. would aid only the most elite and specialized of readers and would be impervious to everyone else. Both mapmaker and author must exercise discretion in deciding the scale of descriptions of intricate systems to the actual detail of those systems. LBUSD has done that. The fact that Public Advocates would have described things differently is interesting feedback, but it doesn’t give rise to a demand. The letter indicates, “We again want to call your attention to the important requirement in the LCAP Template Section 3A that districts must describe ‘the use of any funds in a districtwide [or] schoolwide’ manner and justify each such use according the LCFF regulations.” This claim significantly overstates the requirement. Section 15497.5 gives a blanket requirement that the LCAP in Section 3A "identify the amount of funds in the LCAP year calculated on the basis of the number and concentration of low income, foster youth, and English learner pupils as determined pursuant to 5CCR 15496(a)(5)" and in the very next line merely states "Describe how the LEA is spending these funds in the LCAP year. Include a description of, and justification for, the use of any funds in a districtwide, schoolwide, countywide or charterwide manner as specified in 5 CCR 15496." Although that regulation exceeds the authority granted in the enabling legislation (Educ Code § 42238.07(a)(2)), the LBUSD’s LCAP does exactly what is required under (b)(1) of the regulation. It identifies those services that are being funded and provided on a districtwide basis and describes how such services are principally directed towards and are effective in meeting the District's goals for is unduplicated pupils Angelica K. Jongco, Esq., Page 3 of 6 in the state and any local priority areas. Going above and beyond the regulation which requires only a description of how such funds are spent on either a districtwide or schoolwide basis, the District’s LCAP also explains which schools are given greater funds to spend schoolwide on the areas described in Section 3A and 3B. Your letter assumes that “each” use of funds must be justified, but the regulation never states that. Instead, it refers to a “description of, and justification for, the use of any funds in a districtwide, schoolwide, countywide, or charterwide manner as specified in 5 CCR 15496.” (Emphasis added.) The justification called for is a justification of funds used in a districtwide or schoolwide manner. The LCAP provides numerous justifications for the districtwide expenditures and then goes on to justify schoolwide expenditures. Note that the District was only required to do one or the other—the regulation does not use the compound “and” but the conjunctive “or.” In connection with listing the 52 high-need schools where some schoolwide spending would occur, the LCAP update states that they will receive additional allocations of the Supplemental and Concentration funds for the purposes laid out in all four paragraphs of 3A and on the services described after first colon of 4B. They are too numerous to list here. As for the justification for spending those funds in a Districtwide or schoolwide manner, 3A states, among other justifications, "As recognized by The Broad Prize and corroborated by scholarly research, a districtwide approach is a proven strategy for organizations like LBUSD, where the students and families have high rates of mobility and school choice. It ensures equity across a diverse community that encompasses the cities of Long Beach, Lakewood, Signal Hill, and Avalon on Catalina Island. It also enables efficiencies and economies of scale that maximize the use of public funds. For an urban school district, the student needs are often concentrated in specific areas. Such cases warrant a schoolwide approach, which allows for targeted support while, retaining some economies of scale and site flexibility." That quote contains more than half a dozen direct justifications, and the allusions to the Broad Prize with all of the in depth studies and analysis associated with the Broad Prize, along with the reference to scholarly research, the justifications for the expenditures expand exponentially. The Regulation does not require every justification, and indeed in a system as complex as this, making such an attempt would be a crippling task for both the authors and the readers. Deciding which justifications to include is a discretionary act of the authors. Your letter also disagrees with the editorial discretion used in describing how the LCAP describes services that are “principally directed towards, and are effective in, meeting the district’s goals for its unduplicated pupils in the state and any local priority areas.” Section 15496(b)(1)(B). Following the format required by the state, the annual updates include several descriptions of actual annual measurable outcomes. In addition to those, the District has regularly released additional data as it comes available. It must also be remembered that progress on stretch goals will stretch over time. In some areas, progress has been monumental. In other areas, incremental. In some areas, progress will only be able to be seen over time. Your letter also assumes in various ways that services that are available Districtwide or even available to all cannot be principally directed towards and effective in meeting the District’s goals for unduplicated pupils. The LCAP has several examples of services that are available to a broad range of students but the effects are principally directed towards and effective in meeting the District’s goals for unduplicated pupils. There are many services that are available to all but are still primarily directed to a smaller group or whose benefit is felt primarily by a narrower group than the general population. For example, a park bench is available to all people, strong and weary alike, but it is only those who need some sort of rest who tend to use them. Drinking fountains are available to all, but only the thirsty drink from them. Similarly, many of the District’s educational aids are available to all, but tend to be Angelica K. Jongco, Esq., Page 4 of 6 used only by those with certain needs or the improvement registered is primarily with those with the greatest need. I will list a few examples here. The Male and Female Academies are available to all, but are primarily used by unduplicated pupils, especially low income pupils. Other services may be used by many, but are primarily deployed to benefit unduplicated pupils. SAT test prep is a great example. Students who come from means have always been able to afford access to test prep courses—those students’ SAT performance were relatively constant regardless of District interventions. Unduplicated pupils were the primary beneficiaries of those courses because it helped put them on equal footing, raising unduplicated pupil scores more than the scores of those who are not counted in the unduplicated pool of students. New instructional materials designed to align with Common Core provide a similar bump whose assistance is designed to be felt the most by unduplicated pupils. Common Core materials, more so than prior instructional materials from earlier years, are specifically designed to help close the gap—the emphasis on the child learning much more than the answer helps in particular to reach disadvantaged students in the unduplicated population who with prior materials might have been able to get by with giving mere answers instead of exploring the reasons for answers and how they arrived at them. That thought process forces English learners to articulate more than just answers, thus helping to develop their language skills, and also helps foster children and economically disadvantaged students, who might have been on the periphery of classroom discussions to engage and be engaged by those who aren't in the unduplicated population. These materials help to draw in unduplicated pupils into the discussion, further integrating them and thereby helping to close the achievement gap. A common complaint has been that prior materials favored the privileged students whose parents could afford tutoring in order to help students succeed. The newer materials, in aligning with the Common Core standards and changing the way that students are taught, require every student to be prepared to succeed in college—they force college readiness. Students with more home resources had greater ability to achieve college readiness. With Common Core materials along with the additional resources the District is providing under the LCAP, unduplicated students do not need to pay for an education beyond what they will get at LBUSD in order to get them college ready. Wealthier students have always been able to leverage private resources to bridge the gap between instructional materials and college readiness, because they knew what was required to get them college ready and could afford it. These newer materials place unduplicated pupils on a footing that they otherwise would not have without them. Common Core materials, because they cover fewer topics deeper, run less of a risk of students missing topics that are covered only briefly. Because topics are introduced and reintroduced, the old pattern of students who lagged behind were left behind can change since lagging students will have longer and more diverse ways to approach the same topic from different angles, which depth of learning will help prevent them from getting left behind on topics covered only briefly. Students will have opportunities to catch up with the rest of the group, thus helping to close the gap. Similarly, allocating portions of the LCAP to employee compensation and benefits provides a similar opportunity principally to meet the District’s goals for its unduplicated pupils. Overall compensation, which includes career increments and benefit contributions, is an important component in attracting and retaining highly qualified staff members who can support LBUSD students, particularly the low-income and other historically disadvantaged subgroups. According to “The Cost of Teacher Turnover in Five School Districts: A Pilot Study” by the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, employee turnover is a significant issue, with vulnerable students potentially Angelica K. Jongco, Esq., Page 5 of 6 bearing the biggest brunt as fewer experienced teachers are available to help close the achievement gap. LBUSD aims to address it systematically and sustainably so that long-range college and career readiness efforts can positively impact the neediest students. Reaching unduplicated pupils requires staffing capacity to focus on their unique needs. After the severe staffing contractions during the budget crisis, the LCAP permitted the District to increase its capacity to focus more on unduplicated students by permitting the hiring of teachers which created the bandwidth necessary to focus on the initiatives and programs that help unduplicated students best. The teacher shortage is a growing concern not only in California but across the nation, leading to many districts working hard to recruit teachers away from other districts. As the largest employer in Long Beach and one of the largest employers of teachers, LBUSD is acting decisively, not only to attract new, high quality teachers, but to retain those that it has. As teachers and other education professionals decide whether to remain in LBUSD or whether to come to LBUSD, their decisions are heavily influenced by several factors, including, but not limited to salary, benefits, size and strength of pension shortfalls. Teacher turnover and teacher shortages have a high probability of creating greater disparity among California students. The salary and benefit expenditures are designed to reduce teacher turnover, retain experienced teachers and attract new professionals in order to protect and expand bandwidth which helps to hedge against drains that are most likely to hamper unduplicated pupils. You asked about the discrepancy between the $15 million budgeted and $9 million expected to be paid for employee benefits. The District’s retirement benefits expense will gradually go up to an extra $30 million per year. By allocating monies now, the District is avoiding a predictable fiscal event in the future that would impede the District’s ability to attract, retain and staff a superior teaching force necessary to close the achievement gap. You also asked about what appeared in your reading to be large discrepancies in budgeted and actual LCAP spending. It appears that the disparate amounts budgeted and spent reflect budgetary timing. For example, you asked about Conditions of Learning 2 budgets and expenditures. Approximately $12 million in English textbooks were selected and ordered in fiscal year 2015-16. The books were not scheduled to be delivered before June 30, 2016, so they could not be properly charged to any accounts of the district in the 2015-16 year. These textbooks will be delivered and charged to supplemental and concentration funds in early 2016-17. The same dynamic of lag between ordering, receipt and payment is responsible for the differing amounts that you observed under Condition of Learning 4. Please remember that the LCAP budget is approved in June, but the anticipated actual expenditures are typically calculated for the update during the following May in order to provide sufficient time for input. The information lag can result in numbers not matching up cleanly. Similarly, Conditions of Learning 2 for the 2016-17 budget year shows a projected expenditure of $17 million. This amount includes $5 million in elective, CTE and AP courses along with the $12 million brought forward for the English textbooks that will arrive early in 2016-17. While the calculated proportionality for 2016-17 is $108 million, the district has budgeted $122 million in supplemental and concentration funds which reflects the movement of the textbook expense from 2015-16 into 2016-17. A related reason also sometimes accounts for a delayed matching between budgeted and estimated actual expenditures. Not only do receipts sometimes lag planned expenditures as appears to be the case with respect to the $350,000 for parent engagement and community outreach, those same purposes are often achieved using alternate funds or funds that are still from concentration and Angelica K. Jongco, Esq., Page 6 of 6 supplemental funds. For example, if a Saturday school event primarily addresses student achievement but also includes a parent meeting to help parents understand better how to support the training that occurs for students, the expenditures for the day are not necessarily broken up into student support and parent engagement, but would be ascribed to the dominant expenditure which was for student support. We received your recent Public Records Act Request related to the LCAP and will respond to those questions in separate correspondence. Sincerely, Brent North of North, Nash & Abendroth LLP ATTACHMENT 3 Board of Governors Joan Harrington, Chair Santa Clara Univ ersity School of Law Fred W. Alvarez Jones Day Alina Ball UC Hastings College of the Law Barbara J. Chisholm Altshuler Berzon LLP Martin R. Glick Arnold & Porter LLP Bruce Ives Lif eMov es Dolores Jimenez Kaiser Permanente Leo P. Martinez UC Hastings College of the Law Anita D. Stearns Mayo Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP Robert H. Olson Squire Patton Boggs (retired) Rohit K. Singla Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP Staff Guillermo Mayer President & CEO John T. Affeldt Richard A. Marcantonio Managing Attorney s Isabel Alegría Director of Communication Liz Guillen Director of Legislativ e & Community Af fairs Deborah Harris Director of Dev elopment Sumi Paik Director of Finance & Administration Angelica K. Jongco Samuel Tepperman-Gelfant David Zisser Senior Staf f Attorneys Rigel S. Massaro Chelsea Tu Staf f Attorneys Michelle Pariset Policy Adv ocate Anne Bellows Attorney & Equal Justice Works Fellow Louise Dyble Volunteer Attorney Patty Leal Finance Manager Karem Herrera Legal Administrative Coordinator Tia Nguyen Administrativ e Assistant Madelyn Wargowski Dev elopment & Administrative Assistant Jesse White Communication Coordinator August 9, 2016 Sent via email Olivia Fuentes Director, Division of Accountability, Support and Monitoring Los Angeles County Office of Education Education Center West - Conference Room 606B 12830 Columbia Way, Downey, CA 90242 fuentes_olivia@lacoe.edu RE: Long Beach Unified’s 2016-2019 Local Control Accountability Plan Dear Director Fuentes: Public Advocates has been deeply engaged in supporting the implementation of the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) in a way that makes real the promise of increased and improved resources for high-need students, and greater transparency and meaningful engagement for school communities. In particular, we are working hard to ensure that school districts spend supplemental and concentration (S&C) grants to proportionally increase and improve services for the high-need students who generate those funds. Towards this end, we are supporting local districts and community-based partners in LCFF implementation across the state. Public Advocates wrote to Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD) on June 6, 2016 regarding the district’s draft Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP), citing two issues. (See Attachment 1.) The district: 1) Plans to spend significant S&C funds on districtwide and schoolwide actions without demonstrating how these will constitute a growth in service for high-need students. These expenditures include millions to be spent on teacher pensions and teacher salaries, which on their face do not increase or improve services to LBUSD’s unduplicated pupils; and 2) Underspent in 2015-2016 by approximately $24 million in S&C funds without explaining this discrepancy. The district has allocated an additional $19.7 million for 2016-2017, leaving $4.4 million in S&C funds unaccounted for. The district did not adequately address these issues before it approved its 2016-2019 LCAP on June 26, 2016. Unfortunately, the district’s Page 2 response to our letter on July 21, 2016 also did not resolve these outstanding issues with regard to the district’s LCAP. (See Attachment 2.) We now urge the Los Angeles County Office of Education to assist the district to remedy these issues before approving Long Beach Unified’s 2016-2019 LCAP. Below we will further explain these issues, and address the district’s response to each. THE D ISTRICT CONTINUES SIGNIFICANT SPENDING OF S&C FUNDS ON DISTRICTWIDE AND SCHOOLWIDE ACTIONS WITHOUT EXPLAINING HOW THESE ARE “PRINCIPALLY D IRECTED” AND “EFFECTIVE” IN MEETING THE D ISTRICT’S GOALS FOR HIGH-N EED STUDENTS LCAP Template Section 3A that districts must describe “the use of any funds in a districtwide [or] schoolwide” manner and justify each such use according the LCFF regulations. In a district such as Long Beach Unified that has more than 55% high-need students, the district must justify a districtwide expenditure as “principally directed” to one or more of the district’s goals for highneed students. 5 CCR 15496(b).1 In Section 3A of the draft LCAP (p.147), the District explains more than $108 million2 in supplemental and concentration spending in a summary fashion rather than separately describing each districtwide use of funds to justify how it is principally directed to its goals for high-need students. For all districtwide and schoolwide expenditures, high-need students must be a forethought, not an afterthought or equal thought to all students. In addition, the District must explain in Section 3A how that use of funds is “effective in” meeting its identified LCAP goal for high-need students. To the extent the District is continuing to fund the same actions from the prior LCAP year, it should point to evidence or data to demonstrate effectiveness. Or else one would expect to see in the Annual Update “an assessment of the effectiveness of the specific actions” as the instructions require. (p.78). Instead, the district takes a plenary approach to justifying its districtwide spending, citing to “The Broad Prize and corroborated scholarly research” to assert that “a districtwide approach is a proven strategy for organizations like LBUSD, where students and families have high rates of mobility and school choice.” (p.148.) However, this explanation fails to address how the district has determined that the specific actions and services that the district is funding are effective in serving high-need students. And a review of the district’s reporting on these actions in the Annual Update does not provide an assessment of the effectiveness of the specific actions in question. In Section 2 of the LCAP, the district does provide some limited explanation of certain districtwide supplemental and concentration allocations, but these justifications still do not meet 1 In our extensive reviews of LCAPs over the past two years, we have found that many LEAs are confused by Section 3 of the LCAP. Public Advocates teamed up with the Sacramento County Office of Education to provide training and best practices on the proper uses and reporting of supplemental and concentration funds at a joint gathering of more than 40 counties across the state, including the Los Angeles County Office of Education. For your information, those training materials are available at http://bit.ly/PA_Sec3_Training and the Sacramento County Office of Education website at https://www.scoe.net/lcap/training/Pages/default.aspx. See also One-Pager on Section 3 Requirements at http://bit.ly/LCAP3A_3B_1-pager and Guiding Questions on the Use of Supplemental & Concentration Funds at http://bit.ly/5_Questions_on_SC_Funds. 2 The district states that it is receiving $108.2 million in S&C funds for 2016-2017. When Public Advocates aggregated all the planned expenditures of S&C funds for 2016-2017, however, these totaled $127,885,500. Page 3 the legal requirements in terms of explaining how they are principally directed and effective under LCFF regulations. By failing to separately identify the specific districtwide and schoolwide uses of supplemental and concentration funds, the public cannot determine if cumulatively, the district is providing an “increase or improvement” in services to high-need students as compared to all students in proportion to the additional funds those students generate as required by the law and regulations. The regulations define an “increase or improvement” in services as a “growth in quantity” or “quality” of the service. 5 CCR 15945(k) & (l). In its July 21, 2016 response, the district appears to misinterpret and even disregard these regulatory requirements. (See Attach. 2 at 2-3.) It states that the State Board’s requirements exceed its statutory authority and that the district has the option of justifying districtwide or schoolwide expenditures, and does not have to provide both. Such an interpretation clearly undermines the spirit of LCFF and must be rejected. The district seems convinced that its blanket reasoning for $108 million in S&C is sufficient to meet its regulatory obligation, even when it proposes to spend millions on actions that do not, on a plain reading, increase or improve services for high-need students. And the district’s analogies to the provision of park benches and drinking fountains are misplaced. Under such logic the districtwide and schoolwide justifications would be rendered meaningless, as any service that could foreseeably benefit high-need students would be justified as a valid expenditure of S&C funds. Under this logic, there would be virtually no nexus between the high-need students and the S&C funds they generate for the district. We have specific concerns about the following uses of funds in the approved 2016-19 LCAP, which appear to be continuing from the 2015-16 LCAP: A. $21.4 Million in Supplemental and Concentration Funds for Teacher Pension Reform Contributions & Certificated Salaries Are Not Justified Expenditures of S&C Funds. This combined expenditure of $14.4 million in employee benefits and $7 million in certificated salaries is an increase over the estimated $9 million of supplemental and concentration funds the district estimates spending on employee benefits in this action item in 2015-16 per its Annual Update (p.86). As with last year, this service appears to be an across-the board allocation that does not seem to be “principally directed” to unduplicated pupil goals or to increase or improve services for high-need students as compared to all students. Whether in the form of increased salary or benefits, the underlying services provided from the teachers do not grow in any way. They are the same, just more costly. Nor do the services appear to provide any type of enhanced benefit to high-need students as compared to all students. The district must justify in Section 3.A how this use of funds is principally directed to its goals for high-need students and also how that use of funds is effective. The district’s rationale—which lists the teacher shortage and its potential impact on high-need students—is insufficient as it offers no specifics regarding how the district’s expenditures will actually affect the teacher shortage and teacher quality for the district’s low-income, English learner and foster youth students. As Public Advocates has detailed with the ACLU (Attachment 3), districts face a high burden when attempting to use S&C funds to pay for teacher salary Page 4 increases. First, the district “would have to establish that difficulties in recruiting and retaining qualified staff are so serious that it affects the quality of the education program and that increasing the salary scale would actually improve recruitment and retention in a way that would ‘increase or improve’ the quality of instruction or other services currently offered to high-need students. Second, the district would have to include detailed evidence in its LCAP demonstrating that it meets those narrow circumstances: the district would have to both analyze its turnover and/or vacancy rates and/or experience levels and include specific evidence about the labor market to establish that a general salary increase would actually increase or improve services by improving teacher quality, recruitment and retention. Third, even if a district can make the necessary showing to support this use of funds initially, the district will have to evaluate whether its approach is effective in each annual update.” Neither the LCAP nor the district’s response provide any of this necessary detail to justify paying for teacher salary increases with S&C funds. Such a justification would be even more difficult for teacher pensions, and again, no such reasoning has been provided. Moreover, in Section 3.B, where the district describes how it is meeting its minimum obligation to proportionally increase or improve services for high-need students as compared to all students, the district must justify how this proposed expense, which amounts to some 20% of its anticipated supplemental and concentration funds, is providing a growth in services for highneed students. If it cannot meet these requirements, the district must discontinue funding this expenditure from supplemental and concentration funds. B. Millions of Dollars in Supplemental and Concentration Funds for Expenditures that Do Not Appear to Be Principally Directed to High-Need Student Goals. The district again takes the approach of lumping numerous disparate, districtwide expenditures together in the same action item and then failing to provide the required justification for this spending. For example, the district continues to allocate the following services under a single action item that includes: “Community and Ancillary Services (Recreation Aides, etc.); Student Advisory resources; Teaching Gardens; Campus security/police support; and Administrative services and contracts (e.g., Most Inspiring Students)” and then to report the budgeted expenditures as lump sums across all these items. For supplemental and concentration spending, this amounts to $1.4 million for classified salaries, $941,900 for employee benefits $595,000 for books and supplies, and $3.2 million for “Svcs/Other” (a significant increase over the prior year allocation) (p.76). Without further explanation as to how the spending is distributed among base and supplemental and concentration funds and across specific services in the action item, as well as how each of these proposed expenditures are principally directed to the needs of unduplicated pupils in particular, each of these examples appear to be funding for core services that provide the same level of service to all students and do not appear directed to high-need students as the primary beneficiaries. Another significant expenditure of supplemental and concentration funds that does not appear principally directed to high-need student goals is some $17 million in supplemental and concentration funds for instructional materials aligned with the Common Core (pp.11-12). While the district states that these “materials…play a vital role in … closing achievement gaps,” and the district’s July 21st response elaborates on this point, Common Core implementation is clearly essential to the district’s core instructional program for all students. As such, it is an expenditure that should be paid for from base funds. Page 5 C. Supplemental and Concentration Funds Directly to School Sites Without Further Detail. As a general matter, sending supplemental and concentration funds directly to school sites with high-need students can be an effective way to serve these students, but only if proper attention is paid to ensure that low-income, English learner and foster youth students are being well-served through the use of those funds at the school site. In the 2016-19 LCAP, the district continues its practice of designating significant spending to school sites without providing the amount of supplemental and concentration funding each designated school would receive. While the district generally explains that funds are being provided to the schools “identified as high-need schools,” and provides a listing of those schools (p.132), the district does not explain the amount of funding each school will receive, nor does it articulate how it will ensure those schools properly use those funds in service of high-need student goals according to LCFF regulations. 5 CCR 15496(b). The lack of transparency also raises questions about whether the district is meeting its obligation to proportionally increase and improve services for high-need students. We urge the district to ensure that its 2016-17 LCAP provides more specific information about how supplemental and concentration dollars sent to school sites will be spent. Where that spending is schoolwide, the district must be sure to properly justify that spending according to the regulations. The current justification that “assistance to highneed schools has a direct relationship with assistance to English Learners,” without more guidance about how schools are spending the funds, is insufficient under LCFF regulations (p. 132.) In addition, we would have expected to see some accounting and explanation in the Annual Update on the expenditure of these funds (which amounted to more than $13 million in the 201516 school year), but the district merely provides the generic explanation that “actions/services were implemented largely as planned.” THE ANNUAL UPDATE FAILS TO EXPLAIN LARGE DISCREPANCIES IN BUDGETED AND ACTUAL SUPPLEMENTAL AND CONCENTRATION SPENDING Throughout the annual update, the district estimates significant amounts of supplemental and concentration funds that were allocated but not spent. 3 Yet the district’s LCAP fails to provide an 3 These discrepancies include the following: a) Conditions of Learning Goal #2 – Adopt, replace and/or provide sufficient textbooks and instructional materials that align with Common Core: LBUSD budgeted $12 million in supplemental and concentration dollars under this action item and estimates spending around $2.1 million (p.80); b) Conditions of Learning Goal #4 – General Administration and Other Services; the district budgeted $15,000,000 in supplemental and concentration funds for Employee Benefits and estimat es spending $9 million (p.86); c) Conditions of Learning Goal #4 – School site allocations for implementation of Common Core State Standards. Again, this included a large allocation of supplemental and concentration dollars for books and supplies ($14 million) when estimated spending is around $1.6 million. Other expenditures, including salaries and benefits were higher than budgeted, although nowhere close to accounting for the discrepancy in books and supplies (p.88); d) Conditions of Learning Goal #4 – Budgeted actions for strategic and systematic assistance to schools to advance Common Core implementation included $3.7 million in supplemental and concentration funds for books and supplies when $243,000 was estimated as actually spent (p.89); Page 6 explanation for these discrepancies or explain how those unspent funds were used, and the district’s response regarding this issue is inadequate. These discrepancies add up to approximately $24 million in S&C funds without explaining this discrepancy. The district has allocated an additional $19.7 million for 2016-2017, leaving $4.4 million in S&C funds unaccounted for. Putting aside our concern that some of these expenditures were not properly designated and justified for supplemental and concentration spending in the 2015-16 LCAP, this nonetheless raises questions about how the district spent those dollars and whether it met its minimum obligation in the 2015-16 fiscal year to increase and improve services for high-need students as compared to all students in proportion to the supplemental and concentration funding they generate for the district. See Educ. Code 42238.07; 5 CCR 15496(a). Rather than explaining these discrepancies, the district generically reports for every action in its Annual Update that “[t]he actions/services were implemented largely as planned.” Such cursory reporting raises concerns about whether the district is reflecting on the Guiding Questions to leverage the Annual Update process as a tool for continuous improvement. (See Guiding Questions on p.78.) In its July 21, 2016 letter, the district provides a bit more information. The district explains that the discrepancies for instructional materials (items (a) and (c) above) are the result of “budgetary timing,” as textbooks were ordered in 2015-2016 but were not scheduled to be delivered (and therefore fully paid for) until after the end of the fiscal year. (See Attach. 2 at 5.) The district states that the unspent allocation towards retirement benefits (item (b) above) will help the district to avoid “a predictable fiscal event in the future.” (Ibid.) Regarding parent engagement and outreach (item (e) above), the district states that this discrepancy may be the result of budgetary timing issues, or it may be that the funds were covered by another related expenditures. The district states that $12 million (of the $17 million allocated for textbooks in 2016-17) will be “brought forward for the English textbooks.” While vague, this explanation is helpful, and should be included in the LCAP. And, it remains concerning that $4.4 million was not spent and the district has not articulated any plan to ensure that high-need students benefit from the funding that they generate for the district. We urge the district to be transparent about all substantial discrepancies and therefore to revise the Annual Update to—as the guiding questions indicate—identify “differences … between budgeted expenditures and estimated actual annual expenditures” and “the reasons for any differences.” (See p.78.) CONCLUSION Public Advocates urges the LACOE to assist LBUSD to remedy the aforementioned issues with its approved 2016-2019 LCAP. The district is not in compliance with its statutory and regulatory obligations and threatens to dilute the promise of LCFF to its formidable high-need student population. If the issues above are not resolved, we urge the LACOE to deny approval to e) Engagement Goal #1 – Budgeted actions and services for parent engagement and outreach supports differ greatly, including more than $450,000 less for books and supplies and almost $90,000 less for “Svcs/Other” (p.126). Page 7 LBUSD’s 2016-2019 LCAP. We are of course available to support the LACOE or the district in this process. Sincerely, Rigel S. Massaro Staff Attorney Cc: Chris Steinhauser, Superintendent, LBUSD, cstein@lbschools.net Leticia Rodriguez, Executive Secretary, LBUSD Board of Education, lrodriguez@lbschool.net ATTACHMENT 4 Los Angeles CountXr Office of Education S€n Ddr.ltl.,dq r,f8.W, ErF tdlnakr S.D lng StrdcnB . Supponing CommunttLt . t4adlng Educa6.I August 12. 2016 LoAt!!d.. Ooqtt, Bord oa Educ.lbo Ddda. R ftEid..rt Jon Meyer, Board President Long Beach Unified School District 1515 Hughes Way Long Beach CA 90810-1839 Ab(JohrE r vbe PtE.t ent Dear Mr. Meyer: l(di Biau(,. G.DrLb Hoal rrq1D E Frs Tlgia! F.bc A. saa,rz JfLnorftD In accordance with the provisions of Education Code (EC) Section 52070(b), the Los Angeles County Superintendent ofSchools (County Superintendent) is seeking clarification ofthe Long Beach Unified School District's (District) Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP) for fiscal year 2016-17. The District's goveming board is required to respond in writing within 15 days of this request for clarification. Based on that response, the County Superintendent may submit recommendations for amendment to the LCAP before approval can be granted, pursuant to EC Section 52070(c). REQUIRED INFORMATION MISSING As a result of our review of the District's LCAP, and as discussed with District staff, we have determined that: 1 The District's LCAP Section 2 does not provide evidence to demonstrate how supplemental and concentration funding apportioned on the basis ofthe number and concentration of unduplicated pupils is used to support such pupils, pursuant to 5 CCR 15496 (a). 2. The District's Annual Update does not include all information from each goal from the prior year LCAP as required by the State Board Approved Template pursuant to EC Section 52070 (dxl). The County Superintendent cannot approve the District's LCAP without this required information. Please confirm that the required information is missing, or significantly different, so that the County Superintendent can make recommendations for amendment of the LCAP. If you wish to submit a revised LCAP in response to this request, please notify us in writing of your intent to resubmit the plan within the 15 day timeline. 9300 lmperial Highway, Downey, Catilornia 90242_2890 (562) 922_6i i j Jon Meyer, Board President August 12,2016 Page 2 Our office worked with Long Beach Unified district staff to address the areas requiring clarification and we appreciated the professionalism and collaboration in that process. We wish to express our gratitude to the District's staff and goveming board for their cooperation in responding to this request as soon as possible within the statutory timeline. eith D. Crafton, Director Division of Business Advisory Services KDC:jh c: Christopher J. Steinhauser, Superintendent Yumi Takahashi, ChiefBusiness & Financial Officer Susan Ginder, Financial Services Officer Robert Tagorda, Director, Equity, Access, College & Career Readiness James Suarez, Assistant Director, Equity, Access, College & Career Readiness Charles Faulkner, Business Advisory Services, LACOE Jeff Young, Business Advisory Services, LACOE Chris Burdy, Business Advisory Services, LACOE Michael Jamshidi, Business Advisory Services, LACOE Olivia Fuentes, Accountability, Support & Monitoring, LACOE Bonnie McFarland, Accountability, Support & Monitoring, LACOE Jeanne Keith, Accountability, Support & Monitoring, LACOE ATTACHMENT 5 99 Los Angeles County Office of Education Sen/ing? Students I Supporting Communities I Leading Educators September 9, 2016 Debra Duardo, M.S.W., Superintendent Los Angeles County ?Ewan? Jon Meyer, Board President Douglas RM Long Beach Uni?ed School President 1515 Hughes Way . Long Beach, CA 90810?1839 Alex Johnson Vice President Dear Mr. Meyer: Katie Brande We appreciate the response to our request for clari?cation and the revisions made Gabriella Holt to the LCAP and the Annual Update. Moms E. Perez ThomasA'Saenz In accordance with the provisions of Education Code (EC) Section 52070(c), the Rebecca J. Tunentine Los Angeles County Superintendent of Schools (County Superintendent) is recommending an amendment to one or more sections of the Long Beach Uni?ed School District?s (District) Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP) before approval can be granted for ?scal year 2016-17. The District?s governing board is required to consider the County Superintendent?s recommendation in a public meeting within 15 days upon receipt of this letter. Amendments are recommended as follows: LCAP Section 2 Recommend the District?s LCAP Section 2 be amended to demonstrate that supplemental and concentration funding apportioned on the basis of the number and concentration of unduplicated pupils is used to support such pupils, pursuant to 5 CCR 15496 The response to the request for clari?cation does not demonstrate that the $17,020,000 in expenditures for Common Core aligned textbooks and instructional materials and the $21,400,000 in expenditures for increased costs for teacher salaries and bene?ts are principally directed toward unduplicated pupils. Section 2 of the ?nal amended LCAP must include actions and services re?ecting the amount indicated in Section 3A. Critical Timeline In accordance with EC Sections 42127(d)(2) and 52070, the County Superintendent can only authorize conditional approval of a district budget before the LCAP is 9300 Imperial Highway, Downey, California 90242-2890 (562) 922-6111 Mr. Jon Meyer,- Board President September 9, 2016 Page 2 approved. Therefore, it is important that the District?s governing board take necessary action to approve an amended LCAP before the mandated budget approval date of September 15, 2016. If a district LCAP is still not approved by October 8, 2016, the conditional budget approval becomes a budget disapproval. We appreciate the opportunity to bring our teams together as soon as possible. Ms. Olivia Fuentes, Director of Accountability, Support, and Monitoring will communicate with Director Robert Tagorda to schedule this meeting for Monday, September 12, 2016 or Tuesday, September 13, 2016. Ms. Fuentes can be reached at (562) 922-6764. We wish to express our appreciation to the District?s governing board for their cooperation and response to this request within the statutory timeline. Sincerely, Scott Price, Chief Financial Of?cer Schi CI Christopher J. Steinhauser, Superintendent Yumi Takahashi, Chief Business Financial officer Susan Ginder, Financial Services Officer Robert Tagorda, Director, Equity, Access, College Career Readiness James Suarez, Assistant Director, Equity, Access, College Career Readiness Charles Faulkner, Business Advisory Services, LACOE Jeff Young, Business Advisory Services, LACOE Chris Burdy, Business Advisory Services, LACOE Michael amshidi, Business Advisory Services, LACOE Olivia Fuentes, Accountability, Support Monitoring, LACOE Bonnie McFarland, Accountability, Support Monitoring, LACOE Jeanne Keith, Accountability, Support Monitoring, LACOE