Gary Moskowitz
HILLSIDE DISTRICT -- Leslie Smith is ready for some changes in the
Burbank Unified School District.
Smith, president of Robert Louis Stevenson Elementary School's Parent
Teacher Assn., told Dario Frommer (D-Burbank) -- who visited Burbank on
Tuesday -- that a shortage of nurses on Burbank's school campuses is
completely unacceptable.
"We shouldn't have to see our secretaries being asked to administer
medicinal help to our students," Smith said. "We are seriously lacking in
this category in Burbank, and I'd like to see lightbulbs go on in some
people's heads about this."
Smith joined 20 or more school principals, district officials,
teachers and PTA representatives Tuesday night for an education round
table, hosted by Frommer at John Muir Middle School.
Educators who attended the discussion raised the issue of inadequate
state funding and how it has affected student performance and teacher
workloads.
Specific problems that Burbank educators discussed with Frommer were
early-student intervention, insufficient planning time, inappropriateness
of grade-specific standards and lack of funding for the arts, physical
education, school facilities, school nurses and school librarians.
The school district, currently, has one district librarian, five
full-time nurses, five part-time nurses and nine health assistants.
Accountability has also quickly become an issue for Burbank teachers
like Kim Allender.
"We are dealing with testing mania these days, but is it negatively
affecting our instructional day?" asked Kim Allender, a fifth-grade
teacher at Joaquin Miller Elementary School and co-president of the
Burbank Teachers Assn. "We are headed for a train wreck, and teachers
feel as though they are under siege."
Frommer fielded questions and comments from those who attended, and he
said he hoped Tuesday's meeting would be the first of many to come.
"Everybody in Sacramento has a solution and thinks they know what is
working and isn't working," Frommer said. "But I wanted to hear it from
teachers who deal with this every day."
