unauthorized spending<\/a> created the current problem. \u201cIt\u2019s like a perfect storm,\u201d Jeane said. \u201cAnd I kind of hate using that clich\u00e9 as an English teacher.\u201d<\/p>\n\u2018All of us are responsible\u2019<\/p>\n
Yet the problems are not the fault of just one person, department or entity, she and McArn each emphasized. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a broken system,\u201d Jeane said in an interview.<\/p>\n
The broken parts include unchecked spending habits, too many outside contracts and a tendency to make decisions with incomplete information, she said.<\/p>\n
In a statement from early February, Jeane said, \u201cUltimately all of us are responsible and all of us must be part of the solution.\u201d<\/p>\n
Board and staff clash<\/p>\n
An all-hands-on-deck situation has led to more than a few frayed nerves.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat tension is \u2026 noticeable and real,\u201d McArn said.<\/p>\n
Most palpably that has played out between the board and its interim chief business officer, Lisa Grant-Dawson.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe comes in here with a message that is like, \u2018This is all the bad stuff, and there\u2019s no plan. Thank you, goodbye,\u2019\u201d said Trustee Taylor Kayatta, one of the more outspoken board members.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen the public just thinks our schools are just failing imminently,\u201d he continued. \u201cThere\u2019s a way to share that information with the public that is, I think, more productive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grant-Dawson, who has been on staff since January, defended her \u201cbad news\u201d presentations as part of the diagnostic process. \u201cI had no idea the degree of where the district was\u201d before arriving, Grant-Dawson said in an interview.<\/p>\n
A level of accountability needed<\/p>\n
Kayatta has penned lengthy social media posts, pulling the curtain back on his dissatisfaction with staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t like to bring that level of sausage-making out to the public,\u201d he said. \u201cBut people are rightfully concerned with where we are right now, and I think that level of accountability is called for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Three board members are up for reelection this fall: Kayatta, Jeane and Jasjit Singh. Jeane and Kayatta confirmed they will be running again. Singh did not respond to a request to confirm his plans.<\/p>\n
\u2018Stop whining\u2019<\/p>\n
DiAnne Brown knows she will not be voting for Kayatta come November.<\/p>\n
Brown lives in Kayatta\u2019s district, which covers the Pocket, Greenhaven and parts of South Land Park neighborhoods. She is a former Sacramento City Unified employee and parent to two graduates of the district. <\/p>\n
\u201cJust do the job you were elected to do and stop whining,\u201d Brown wrote in the comments of his Facebook post. \u201cYou represent my neighborhood, but you\u2019ll not be getting my vote next time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess I just got tired of him making excuses,\u201d she told Abridged.<\/p>\n
Brown is coming up on two years of retirement from Sacramento City Unified. She loved her job as the only full-time grant writer on staff. But she said when she left in 2024, \u201cI could see the writing on the wall.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI just don\u2019t know if this district has ever been run in a fiscally smart way,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n
Worst case scenario<\/p>\n
On one point, she and Kayatta agree \u2014 a state bailout would be the worst-case scenario for Sacramento City Unified.<\/p>\n
Staff and board members are desperately working to avoid having to turn to the state for a loan<\/a> and cede power to a county-appointed administrator.<\/p>\nKayatta said he can understand why some members of the public might wonder why a state takeover would be so bad. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a pretty clear way to think,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s like, what we have isn\u2019t working, we need to do something new.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Kayatta said he has seen the negatives firsthand, while previously working for the state controller\u2019s office and auditing a district under the burden of an emergency loan.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want my kids to be in a school (district) where there\u2019s a new receiver coming in every year,\u201d he said. \u201cCutting the services that we value because they make sense to some number cruncher who doesn\u2019t really have connection to our community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kayatta compared the experience to a beloved local business being bought out by a larger corporate entity, only to have the quality deteriorate.<\/p>\n
The clock is ticking for the district to find a solution. But McArn said she and others in charge remain determined.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have not just an obligation to our students and our families and our staff, but the city,\u201d she said. \u201cLike, we\u2019re Sac City. We have to figure this out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Savannah Kuchar\u00a0is a reporter covering education. She came to Sacramento to be a part of the Abridged team and contribute to a crucial local news source.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Abridged version: The Sacramento City Unified School District has faced its share of budget woes in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[5592,121,123,122],"class_list":["post-268955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-feature","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}