School Officials Share Their Opinion on New Funding Formula

The State Board of Education wanted to know how school districts like the state’s new Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), which gives them much greater spending flexibility in return for much greater community input into the process. The message from Moreno Valley Unified officials who testified at a recent hearing in Sacramento was simple: It works well for us. MVUSD School Board member Jesus Holguín and Chief Business Official Mays Kakish told the State Board that community engagement in creating the new Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) is one of the new funding formula’s strong points. The State Board of Education is currently reviewing districts’ experiences with the newly implemented Local Control Funding Formula and its requirements. “We worked creatively to involve our community stakeholders in the LCAP process,” said Holguín, who is also president-elect of the California School Boards Association. “For us, involving parents and others is not a chore, but something that we enjoy and ultimately makes us stronger as a school district and a community.” Holguín cited the Telephone Town Hall Meeting conducted in May by Superintendent Dr. Judy D. White as an example of creative community engagement. At a pre-advertised date and time, Dr. White made a single conference call to all parents in the district to discuss MVUSD’s new Strategic Plan and the LCAP, which were created together with an unprecedented level of stakeholder participation. The hour-long, talk-radio-style telephone conversation reached thousands of parents, more than 400 of whom stayed on the line for the entire hour, asking questions or just listening in. “We made it easier for parents to take part in the process and they responded very positively,” Holguín said. “It worked so well we plan to make it a regular community-engagement event.”