This editorial appeared in the Monterey County Herald on October 13, 2002 (pages F1,F3):

By DANIEL CALLAHAN
Guest commentary

The Monterey Peninsula Unified School District has a long and storied tradition. It has for years been an excellent school district with many resources and outstanding programs.

Through the early 1990s, this was due in large part to several million dollars a year in extra funding from the federal government because of the impacts from the military presence at Fort Ord and other installations. As the base downsized and then closed, that money was lost and the district and the community struggled with returning to what most school districts in California characterize as "business as usual."

With the loss of approximately $10 million in federal impact aid, our 20 schools have lost, on average, $500,000 in yearly funding that will not come back.

The district made efforts to reduce expenditures while enrollment declined and revenues dropped. As a result, the district found itself in "AB 1200 status" - the equivalent of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.

That is all bad news.

But there are several pieces of good news. The district has hired an outstanding and experienced chief business officer and a new director of fiscal services from Silicon Valley. Most importantly, last spring the school board made very difficult decisions about reducing programs to which the Peninsula had been accustomed in order to bring expenses in line with revenues.

While everyone in the district struggles with these adjustments, I am confident we will find new ways to achieve excellence just as do many other school districts in California with the same level of funding.
First, we must explicitly and thoughtfully determine who we are and what we are about. As the community, staff, and school board have struggled with financial matters, it has been difficult to do any real mission development, goal setting, and long-range strategic planning. We are, however, embarking on that process.

This month, we will have a Strategic Thinking Institute for about 25 key thinkers and influential leaders from our school community. In mid-November we are assembling our district Strategic Planning Team. This group will be responsible for developing the beliefs and values of the district, a strong and unified mission statement, and long-range strategies for thoughtful, important, highest-priority initiatives for the next three to five years.

Then action teams will be formed for each of the strategies. Those action teams will report back to the Strategic Planning Team in February with action plans, including timelines, performance objectives, and intended results:

Over the next two years, each school will develop its own planning teams, long-range objectives and action teams.

These programs, I believe, will give our internal community of staff, parents, and students, and our external community of residents and businesses, confidence that the schools and the district are moving forward thoughtfully, deliberately, and courageously to reshape MPUSD to its previous state of excellence.

Everyone that I have talked to agrees that our schools are in poor shape physically. We are in the process of qualifying for a $46 million hardship allocation from the state. If the November statewide bond initiative for school construction passes, we will receive those funds shortly. That will cover immediate infrastructure repairs. Most won't be visible but will begin to bring our schools up to code in terms of wiring, maintenance and access for the disabled.

We intend to demonstrate to the community over the next two to three years that we are both fiscally responsible and simultaneously improving the performance of all of our students. After all, MPUSD is all about the kids: Our children are the message we send into a future we will never see.

Daniel Callahan joined the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District as superintendent in August 2002.