Fresno Trustees OK Tutor Bill: Board Votes 5-2 to Pay Read and Succeed $737,760.
By Christina Vance, The Fresno Bee, Calif.
May 11–Fresno Unified school board members reluctantly voted Wednesday to pay up to $737,760 to a tutoring company that wooed parents with an offer of Palm Pilots and gift certificates.
Before the 5-2 vote, district staffers assured skeptical trustees they had investigate Read and Succeed, LLC, before paying the company a penny.
District staffer Barbara Bengel said Read and Succeed representatives actively solicited parents of Storey and Winchell elementary students to sign their children up for tutoring.
Company representatives promised free Palm Pilots to students and $200 gift certificates if students completed certain levels of tutoring. They signed up 540 students by going door-to-door and talking to parents outside school buildings. Bengel said many of the parents probably had no idea what they were really signing.
Furthermore, Read and Succeed doesn’t tutor in person. Students use the Palm Pilots, telephones and computers to communicate with off-site tutors.
Trustee Janet Ryan called the company’s proposal “ludicrous.”
“How do you tutor a child when you’re not there? Can we talk to the state of California first and find out how in the world this company got approval?”
Bengel explained the Santa Monica-based company was approved by the California Department of Education to tutor students who attend a program improvement school and qualify for free and reduced lunch. The law allows parents to sign their children up for district-funded, supplemental tutoring.
Although state standards for tutoring companies are high, Bengel said the companies might not deliver the quality of tutoring they promise to the state. Read and Succeed couldn’t charge the district for electronics or gift certificates — just $68 per hour for tutoring.
Because Read and Succeed is state-approved, turning down its services could make Fresno Unified appear to be rejecting tutoring assistance for deserving students in violation of government guidelines, Bengel said.
She recommended the board approve the contract, which would only last until June 24. She vowed to investigate the tutoring to make sure it was what the company said it would be.
Most of the board members agreed they didn’t like the contract. They also agreed they didn’t have many options.
“The parents have a choice. They’ve made a choice, even if we feel it may be ill-advised,” trustee Carol Mills said. “I don’t feel legally we have much of a choice.”
Trustee Manuel Nunez, who voted against the contract with Ryan, said he wouldn’t jump into a snake pit — even if state education officials said it was necessary.
“It’s time we as a board stood up and said no,” he said.
No representatives from Read and Succeed attended Wednesday’s meeting.
In other business, the board gave the go-ahead for construction work to begin on two new elementary schools.
The board accepted a bid to build Deborah A. Williams Elementary for about $13.2 million from Lewis C. Nelson & Sons, Inc. of Selma. The school will be built at Fruit and Dakota avenues.
The second school, Mario G. Olmos Elementary, will be built on Chestnut Avenue between East Balch and Mono avenues for a little more than $13 million by Micham Inc. of Woodlake.
Both schools are scheduled to open in August 2007 on a traditional track calendar. They’re being paid for with Measure K funding approved by voters in 2001.
Numerous schools found out Wednesday who their principals will be next fall. Board members voted in closed session to fill numerous principal positions that had been vacated by reassignments, retirements and resignations. Several of the positions emptied after a March vote by board members to reassign principals, partly because of low school test scores.
Superintendent Michael Hanson welcomed the new staffers and praised them for their willingness to work hard.
“We have difficult work ahead of us, and it’s moving to see so many of you stand up and say, ‘I’m in,’” he said.
In other business, district officials presented their initial negotiations proposal with the Fresno Teachers Association. Official talks were scheduled to begin June 1. The district proposed negotiating salaries and benefits, teaching hours and the evaluation of professional standards.
The Fresno Teachers Association also submitted its proposal to the board Wednesday night. It proposed discussing class sizes, fringe benefits, salaries, site-based decision making and safe working conditions.
The next regular board meeting is scheduled for May 24.
The reporter can be reached at cvance@fresnobee.com or (559) 441-6197.
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Copyright (c) 2006, The Fresno Bee, Calif.
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