May 9, 2014
B3
T he C oast News
Odd Files
RSF School District replies to San Diego County Grand Jury report
By Chuck Shepherd
By Christina Macone-Greene
Price of Friendship “Whoever said, ‘Money can’t buy you friends’ clearly hasn’t been on the Internet recently,” wrote The New York Times in April, pointing to various social media support services that create online superstars by augmenting one’s Facebook “friends,” Twitter “followers” and Instagram “likes.” The reporter described how, by paying a company $5, for example, he immediately acquired 4,000 “friends,” and had he splurged for $3,700, could have had a million on his Instagram photo account. Such services have been around for two years, but earlier, cruder versions (sometimes, just unmonitored email addresses) are now sophisticated “bots” — groups of computer code created on algorithm farms in India and elsewhere — that “behave” on social media with original messaging (often “drivel,” wrote the Times) as if they were real people. The Entrepreneurial Spirit We All Scream: (1) In April, Haagen-Dazs announced it will introduce two new ice creams (thankfully, only in Japan): carrot orange (with bits of pulp and peel) and tomato cherry (made from tomato paste). (2) A South Wales ice cream maker (“Lick Me I’m Delicious”) announced in April that it has perfected an ice cream containing about 25mg of Viagra per scoop (though it is not yet generally available). Marketing Challenges: (1) In January, London’s Daily Telegraph found three British companies in competition to sell deodorant supposedly made especially for women’s breasts. According to one, Fresh Body, “We’re replacing ‘swoobs’ — dreaded boob sweat — with smiles.” (2) Owner Christian Ingber recently opened a sandwich shop in Gothenburg, Sweden, named “A F***ing Awesome Sandwich.” An American expatriate told Stockholm’s The Local news service that Swedes think English “curse words” are “cute and charming.” Science Fair Medical Marvels: (1) China’s Chengdu Commercial Daily reported in March that Liu Yougang, 23, finally had surgery to remove that whistle he had swallowed when he was 9. He had been experiencing worsened breathing — and had been making “shrill whistle sounds” nightly after falling asleep. (2) London’s Daily Star featured Sarah Beal, 43, of Arley, Warwickshire, England, in a March story demonstrating her skin condition in which writing words on her skin makes it puff up for about an hour before it recedes. It is referred to by doctors as the “Etch A Sketch condition” (formally, dermatographia), and despite occasional pain, she described it as “cool” and a “party trick.”
RANCHO SANTA FE — In an effort to increase the awareness and effectiveness for school safety, the San Diego County Grand Jury issued a report on March 24 entitled, “School Security: There Is No Greater Purpose.” It was sent to the San Diego School Districts. In its summary, the Grand Jury felt because school violence still “remains a viable threat,” the principle reason behind the report was to implement safety initiatives for its students, teachers and administrators. Out of nine recommendations, the Rancho Santa Fe School District replied to the San Diego Grand Jury regarding two of them. The district’s legal representative, Richard Currier, Esq., has been their external general counsel for 25 years. Currier pointed out that from time to time, the Grand Jury focuses on various topics, will determine whether or not to investigate them, and if so, they then issue a report. Currently, school security is the report topic. Currier shared that seven of these nine recommendations by the Grand Jury were already being implemented such as identifying key personnel for school security; a school security plan for emergency response and preparedness; security training programs with outside support services such as local law enforcement, and, website access for Crime Stoppers and Stu-
dents Speaking Out. While the Rancho Santa Fe School District takes school security highly seriously, Currier said, they did disagree with two of the recommendations. In fact, Currier already issued a letter to the Grand Jury regarding their two recommendations. One of which was 14-10: Develop and publish a Security Awareness and Prevention Program that is geared specifically for parent
thought its description was vague. Rather than having parents inform the district about abnormal behaviors, Currier said, the concern was more to be informed by the parents if a child were to make any threats with regard to the school or anyone at the school. The other was recommendation 14-15: Develop a plan for initiating school-to-parent communication channels that encourage parents and others to come for-
We were lucky enough to build a new school, where we were able to implement and add safety eatures to the new school that our old school did not have.” Lindy Delaney Superintedent, Rancho Santa Fe School District
participation to help them identify abnormal behaviors of their children and the resources to turn to for help. “Superintendent Delaney and I discussed this at some length, and in regard to all these recommendations, we thought it was quite frankly, ‘over the top’ to have a program that is geared specifically to parents to participate in it to identify abnormal behaviors and inform the district about them,” said Currier, adding how he
ward and report behavioral problems that could result in violent behavior. “Our thoughts are that we don’t need a plan for that, maybe we just inform parents if you think there is a problem, pick up the phone and call the district administrator,” Currier said. Currier went on to say that sometimes there is an emphasis that a whole plan, procedure or policy is needed. But in some cases, all that is required is informing
parents to contact the district if there is an issue or problem they need to be aware of. “In my letter, it is indicated that the Rancho Santa Fe School District is a small elementary school district, with only one school site,” said Currier, noting how the report represented a once size fits all approach which didn’t pertain to their district. The Grand Jury responded to Currier’s April 11 letter, requesting a more detailed reply to the disagreed recommendations. Currier is in the process of doing that now and conveyed that the school district has always made safety and security its top priority. “We were lucky enough to build a new school, where we were able to implement and add safety features to the new school that our old school did not have,” Superintendent Lindy Delaney said. Additionally, they also implement regular safety and security drills. Having the sheriff’s substation across the street is another benefit. “And not only are they responsive, but they are proactive and the Rancho Santa Fe Patrol is also a great help to us as a school and we can call on them anytime,” said Delaney, noting how fortunate they were. For Delaney, school security is always a work in progress. The district has done a lot in regard to school security, Currier said, while still trying to maintain the friendly, rural nature of the school.
Citizen satisfaction survey gets green light from city council By Bianca Kaplanek
DEL MAR — Three months after agreeing to conduct a survey to gauge residents’ satisfaction with city services, council members agreed 4-0 at the May 5 meeting on the method that will be used, a decision that will cost about half of what was originally budgeted. Council authorized staff at the Feb. 3 meeting to begin the process to conduct a survey, something that hasn’t been done since 2006. But in April, when they were slated to award a $15,000 contract to Probolsky Research, council members concluded the methods that were going to be used would garner relatively useless information. City staff worked to create several other options, which were presented May 5. With Mayor Lee Haydu absent, the remaining council members opted to conduct the survey using inhouse staff as well as a consultant for a cost of $8,400. Kristen Crane, assistant to the city manager, said that plan is similar to the proposal council opposed in April, but it should provide more in-depth data. The consultant will work with staff and City Council to develop the questions, create and host the Internet portion and analyze and report the data. City staff will design, print and mail postcards and coordinate marketing for the Internet survey. Phone surveys will also be conducted. This method will allow residents to share their thoughts on how the city is
performing and result in a more efficient use of city staff time. The least expensive option – conducting the survey completely in-house — was estimated to cost about $5,000 but it would have been time-consuming for staff and lacked the expertise of a consultant. Crane said another option would be to not proceed with the survey and use the $15,000 to launch a webbased community engagement model for continuous input. For example, the city could pose a question and provide education. Residents could then weigh in with their thoughts, which council members could use for decision making. “These types of surveys are considered by local government managers to be a really effective tool to help
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gauge what the community’s priorities are, how we’re doing with different services,” Crane said. In March, Encinitas agreed to launch this type of community outreach using a service known as Peak Democracy. Councilman Terry Sinnott said the suggestion “is a valuable thing for us to work towards.” “I would still, though, like to get a quick snapshot of how we’re doing this year,” he said. Councilman Don Mosier agreed. “I see an advantage of doing that in the future, but it’s really a little bit different than what was envisioned by this survey,” he said. Mosier said using city staff and consultants would
likely still produce a survey that results in some uncertainty. “But we’ll get a sense of what the satisfaction level is,” he said. “And we just have to remember that we don’t take it too seriously, but we’ll probably see the big problems if they’re out there.”
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