Rampage
Fresno City College Volume CXXII, Edition 1
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February 1, 2012
IS SUMMER
SCHOOL DOOMED?
ByAlex Tavlian Rampage Reporter
Students in the State Center Community College District may be facing a drastic change to their annual schedule if the Board of Trustees has its way and eliminates an overwhelming majority of this year’s summer school course offerings during its Feb. 7 meeting. Canceling the summer classes at all of its campuses will save the district $500,000 Chancellor Deborah G. Blue wrote in an email to staff on Jan. 27. “We are showing savings from canceling summer session courses through the end of the fiscal year,” the chancellor had explained in another email. Blue explained that the district is recommending the cancellation of summer school in order to avoid salary cuts and layoffs of staff.
In another email to staff on Jan. 20, the chancellor had noted that her office was additionally recommending to the board of trustees “to cancel the remaining summer sessions for 2012.” Since then, the chancellor has recon-
hardships this would create for students, I directed Ed Eng [vice chancellor for finance] to rework the mid-year reduction plan to include options for including at least some scaled-back summer sessions after June 30.” She stated
The chancellor’s proposal to entirely eliminate all summer offerings before June 30 and reduce the number of courses offered after July 1 does not sit well with Student trustee Christopher Coronado or Lacey Barnes, president
“The district messed things up and is now putting it on the backs of the students.” Chris Coronado Student Trustee sidered. In an email to staff last Friday, Blue wrote, “After hearing from the campuses about the severe
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that while the mid-year reduction plan proposal will include some form of summer session, “it will be greatly reduced.”
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of the State Center Federation of Teachers. Coronado said that the proposal to eliminate summer school
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was like “turning on a dime” rather than planning ahead for future cutbacks. “How successful will students be?” Coronado asked. He added that the move to eliminate a part of summer school shortchanged students, giving students roughly four weeks to complete classes designed for six weeks of instruction. “The district messed things up and is now putting it on the backs of students,” Coronado said. Shortening the session wasn’t the “optimal learning environment for students or teachers,” Barnes said. “The best we can hope for is a cursory introduction to the information that you need to be learning,” she said. “Are we really talking about what’s best for the students?”
See Summer School on page 3