Teacher Jeffrey Mead said teachers need to help campaign for the new parcel tax. "If this is going to benefit us and save our jobs, we should be out there too," he said.

As far as saving teacher jobs: if saving jobs was important than why didn't the union take the safe move, postpone the raise and secure the jobs of the nontenured teachers? They could have created more security for ALL the teachers not by completely forgoing the raise, but simply by postponing it....(until after the structural deficit had been addressed/resolved)

That would have been the fair thing to do for the newly hired teachers. Everybody gains job security and everybody waits for the raise, instead of everybody gets a raise, but some teachers might not be around to enjoy it because it was given before passing a new tax and now cuts are a real possibility. I don't understand that reasoning but it's where we are now.

"Assistant Superintendent Erik Burmeister said that of nearly 250 people who had posted comments on the district's website regarding the district's finances using an online form, more than 80 percent currently had students in the district".

What is the plan to solicit input from the other 80% of the community who are not district parents?

What is the plan to share the results with the public that have come in thus far?

What will be the criteria used to decide next steps?

How will the results of the Panorama Survey be shared?
What is the minimum number of respondents needed for the board to feel comfortable that it reached enough of the community to take an action on its critical questions?

At what point will the district try a different outreach method/marketing strategy to reach more parents? They may appear uninterested but we don't want them to show opposition to a parcel tax AFTER a measure has been placed on the ballot. This needs to be ascertained NOW.

Thank you Barbara for your coverage of our district. You are helping get some news out and dialogue started.

"What is the plan to solicit input from the other 80% of the community who are not district parents?"

Guaranteed there isn't any plan. The board doesn't want it. They just want to put another parcel tax on the ballot and push parents to vote for it. It will be interesting to see if they try the "stealth" route again.

A stealth vote on a new parcel tax that attempted to succeed by focusing only on the parents of students will fail.

The community has been awakened and the community will only support a new parcel tax if that parcel tax is understood and time limited to ensure accountability.