Adler facilitates ‘super’ visit

State School Superintendent tours the Eastside.

California Superintendent of Schools, Tom Torlakson, visited Inyo and Mono County schools on Wednesday, June 4. After his tour of the elementary, middle, and high school in Mammoth Unified School District (MUSD), the Mono County Office of Education hosted a public reception at the Mammoth Lakes Public Library on Wednesday afternoon.

This was not only Torlakson’s first official visit to Mono County, but also the first visit by any high-level California Office of Education staff, according Dr. Stacey Adler, the re-elected Superintendent of Schools for Mono County as of June 3. She publically welcomed Torlakson at the reception before he addressed the crowd.

“[Dr. Adler] has been telling me for a while what amazing schools there are here in Mono County and I wanted to come and see it myself,” he began.

Dr. Adler commented that she had not pursued Torlakson for a visit, but rather his staff originally contacted her office in November. The details took months to coordinate, and Torlakson’s visit wasn’t confirmed until three weeks ago. Torlakson praised Adler as the “star” of California County Superintendents Educational Services Association and publically invited her to become more involved in that organization. He then commented on his perception of MUSD teachers and the general status of education in California.

“I had a chance to go through your district today. You have champion, outstanding teachers [who] are very creative,” Torlakson said. “They are diligent and really care about kids.”

“I’m seeing this across California— teachers are being asked to be their creative inner-selves again instead of just memorizing content. It’s not about dates and names. Teachers are asking why things happen and linking it to the real world,” he said. “They are better preparing kids for careers and college.”

Torlakson later mentioned high-school level agricultural business courses at schools in the Central Valley as part of his efforts to further implement career pathways programs in public schools.  “If [students] have a goal and a career in mind, they are more motivated to do well in school and their test scores go up,” he said.

He mentioned test scores several times, but when questioned, he clarified that test scores are only one indicator of the quality of the educational system. “No, we don’t only look at test scores,” Torlakson said. “Graduation rates are important. Attendance rates are important. Kids need to be going to school.”

About the state of California schools, Torlakson said: “I think California Education is headed in the right direction. There are bumps in the road. There are financial issues … We were there to listen today. To take back some really important problems I heard about that we want to address—that I want to try and get answers to.”

Dr. Adler confirmed Torlakson’s remark: “We actually walked throughout the schools, so we had lots of time to dialogue about things coming down the pipe,” she said.  “We have a new funding mechanism for schools in California that really hasn’t positively favored our districts.”

The Local Control Funding legislation, backed by Torlakson, was enacted in 2013. The idea behind this funding is to “cut the red tape” and “give control back to the districts,” according to Torlakson.  He boasted in handing over $13 billion to local districts based on the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), which awards districts based on several areas including average daily attendance, English Learners, and Low Income students. However, MUSD qualifies as a basic aid district, where funding comes solely from property tax and not general purpose state aid.

Dr. Adler said there is a school district in Sacramento through the local funding mechanism that received an additional $11 million dollars this year. Because they are not at their target, they are going to continue to get funding over the next seven years until they reach their target. “Our district, unless property taxes go up, we aren’t going to get more money,” Dr. Adler said. “Torlakson asked myself and Lois [Klein, Superintendent of MUSD] to send him information outlining how local control funding hasn’t benefited us.”

“We are going to keep working to get more money in general to all of our schools,” Torlakson. “I’m a teacher and teachers are naturally optimistic … California slipped from being top-ranked in the nation to kinda bottom ranked. I really think we are having a renaissance that is positive and will really bring us back to the top.”

Torlakson visited eight different classrooms, including the bi-lingual and Spanish immersion classes at Mammoth Elementary, where he spoke in Spanish to the kids. When asked about Torlakson’s response to the schools in MUSD, Dr. Adler said:  “He’s been completely positive.”

“In a rural county like we are in, our teachers think that Sacramento is like Oz,” Dr. Adler said. “Having [Torlakson] here really showed our teachers and all of our staffs that Sacramento does care about what we’re doing.”

Torlakson is up for re-election in November in a run-off race with Marshall Tuck. Torlakson narrowly missed the majority win with 47 percent of the votes on Tuesday’s election. When asked about the election, Torlakson responded with his previously stated optimism: “We have further to go, but we’re not in bad shape,” he said.