Cathy Baylock | Council School Liaison Committee Minutes
Burlingame City Councilor Cathy Baylock - Putting Burlingame First

Council School Liaison Committee Minutes

Task:   

1. How to facilitate the safety of our school children in crossing streets at intersections currently identified to receive crossing guard services.

Additional tasks that will be addressed by the Liaison Committee at a later date include:
 
2. What can be done to “shore up” the city/district relationship that has been strained by the dynamics of the current situation?
 
3. Revisit the underlying financial trade offs and implications involved in the current partnership.   (There is still some perception among some council and school board members and staff that the financial implications of the partnership are not balanced.)  

The group agreed that if they found that the efforts to address the school crossing guards issue was being hampered by either of the other two issues they would change the sequence of addressing the issues. 

Interests

  1. Safety of children & others
  2. Ability of School District and City Governing Bodies to determine their own funding priorities
  3. Avoid diverting District/City funds from their core services as defined by them
  4. Maintain strong mutually supportive relationship that maximizes cooperation and service to the community
  5. Avoid one jurisdiction assuming an inequitable financial burden resulting from their cooperation and support of the other.   
  6. Honor commitment to use public assets to serve our shared/mutual customers in a manner that does not divert finances away from entities core services.
  7. Maintain public credibility of elected officials. 
  8. Minimize liability exposure
  9. Avoid a dynamic that may make it harder for future partnership opportunities
  10. Meet Public expectations for good cooperation and support between the city and school district.
Options re: Crossing Guards
  1. City make other reduction(s) to cover the $64,000 cost
  2. School District fund or make reduction(s) to cover the $64,000 cost
  3. Solicit volunteers to handle the crossing guard duties
  4. Use students to handle the crossing guard duties
  5. City and School District share the expense
  6. City and School District jointly attempt a trial volunteer/student crossing guard program 
  7. Reduce School Liaison Officer for the serving elementary school district and use savings to fund crossing guards.
  8. Use fees from fines and forfeitures to fund the guards
  9. Look for other revenues or new fees to fund the guards
  10. Ask the PTA to pick up some of the classroom activities that would be lost by elimination of the school liaison officer on elementary school campuses.
  11. Ask high school district and/or parents to help fund the school liaison officer position. 
  12. Tie the cost of the guards into a revenue measure (i.e. parcel tax).
  13. Explore if all eight intersections require guards.
  14. Increase recreation fees to fund the guards (possibly increase field use fees for youth sports groups). 
  15. Agree that the District will charge the City for use of school buildings for after school recreation program and use that additional revenue to offset cost of crossing guards. 
Note: the bolded options received unanimous support for further consideration.   The non-bolded options were identified by one or more committee members as ones they could not support at this time.   Nonetheless they are still options that the group may want to revisit later as they strive to developed a recommendation for full Council and Board consider. 
Other Options re: School City Partnership
  1. Possibly have a joint public press briefing in the crossing guards issue and the related facts.
  2. Develop a mechanism to address program and financial changes in the City/District partnership.
  3. Increase communications back to full council and board re: liaison committee meetings.   I.e. possibly written reports. 
  4. Encourage elected officials to communicate directly and informally vs. from the “podium”. 
  5. Maintain a “united front” in all external communication when ever possible.
  6. Consider increasing shared utilization of facilities.   I.e. community center facilities and possibly consider a joint city hall/district admin building that could share meeting chambers and support functions.  

Follow Up

  1. Sonny will send an e-mail message to all those that received his earlier e-mail re: school crossing guards
  2. Jim will send a similar message to all city council members asking that they use it as a basis to respond to the press or members of the public.
  3. Jim and Sonny to work on a joint press release on the liaison committee’s efforts.
  4. Staff to schedule another meeting with the liaison committee members and will brief the two members that were unable to make this meeting. 

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