Pacoima : Principal Co-Chairing Statewide Initiative

Public charter school principal Yvonne Chan will join Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and Rep. Howard Berman (D-Panorama City) as co-chair of the statewide Educational Efficiency Initiative campaign, aimed at limiting administrative spending in California school districts.

Chan is principal of Vaughn Next Century Learning Center, a year-round school in Pacoima that serves 1,170 students.

Since becoming a charter school, Vaughn has been able to devote most of its budget to expenses directly related to the school, resulting in smaller classes, the purchase of more computers and construction of 14 new classrooms, Chan said.

“After contracting out for other services, for instance, payroll, auditing, legal and personnel services, we still have 95.6% of our total revenues reserved for kids,” Chan wrote in a letter to the Children’s Rights 2000 campaign, which is sponsoring the ballot initiative. “We have proved that no more than 5% is needed for non-school site administration, even for an urban city school of our size and with our needs.”

Endorsed by United Teachers-Los Angeles, the measure would put a spending limit of 5% on central education bureaucracy in an attempt to assure that 95% of state education revenues are spent on classroom-related services.

Cynthia Wieland, public affairs director for the campaign, said if passed, the measure could redirect as much as $1.3 billion statewide from central administrative costs to students.

“In Los Angeles, schools would get an additional $40 million” if the 5% cap initiative passed, Wieland said, based on school budget data collected by the California Teachers Assn.

As a co-chair of the initiative, Chan’s job is to promote the drive to get the measure on the November ballot. The campaign must collect 433,000 valid signatures to qualify.