Orange Trustees Retreat on Ban of Service Grants

In the face of heated protests by families and community groups, the Orange Unified School District retreated from adopting an unprecedented policy to prohibit grants for all social services on campus, including free breakfasts.

But by a 4-3 vote, the board approved a compromise plan that bans permanent medical, dental or counseling services on campus, without clarifying what it meant by permanent. Opponents of the plan were cheering Thursday night, assuming that current services won’t be threatened.

“I think this means we can continue with everything we’re doing,” said Jana Tomlinson, a teacher at Lampson Elementary School, which offers extensive social service programs and was the primary target of the original proposal.

Still, any grant request or grant renewal must go before the school board for review.

Trustee Maureen Aschoff said she did not favor a “blanket policy” on grants but preferred to consider grants individually. “If we set up the chance to sit one on one at a table of mutual respect, we can work out a consensus. There is a way to cooperate.”

Orange’s effort to ban social service grants may be unprecedented in California. The California Teachers Assn., various children’s advocacy groups and People for the American Way, a national research organization that monitors the actions of the religious right, say they know of no other school district that has prohibited schools from applying for certain social service grants.

“To my knowledge, this is a very unique situation,” said Wayne Johnson, vice president of the teachers union. “I don’t know of any place in the state where any kind of grant that serves children [is] being voted out by the board.”

The original policy was crafted by the seven-member board, which contends that schools should focus exclusively on academics, and that parents should not look to schools to solve all problems, or become “welfare offices,” Trustee Max Reissmueller has said. Others in the community have argued at public hearings that children who are hungry or unhealthy or have emotional problems don’t perform well in the classroom.

The board’s most conservative members voted against the revised policy Thursday night, saying it was not specific enough.

“The problem is that it opens a whole new can of worms,” said Martin Jacobson, school board president. “It muddies the water.”

Thursday’s vote came three days after a public hearing attended by more than 400 people. Most of the 70 speakers denounced the board’s efforts.

Although any policy would affect all 37 of the district’s schools, its impact would be felt mostly at Lampson Elementary, which offers extensive medical, dental and counseling programs to its students through its “Heart-to-Heart” project involving 30 community groups.

During the last three years, Lampson has received more than $200,000 in grants for various social services for students and their families, three-fourths of whom live in poverty. None of the grants require the district to contribute funds.

The controversy over social service programs first arose when Lampson received a $25,000 grant from the Weingart Foundation to hire a family counselor and open a family resource center. Although trustees approved the grant in January, they drafted a policy to prohibit similar gifts in the future.

Some have criticized the board for what they call its political agenda.

“Even those of us who come from a fiscally conservative background realize the dollars for these programs come from outside the district,” said Mark A. Lowry, chairman of Orange’s Christ Lutheran Church social action board, which sent letters to parishioners informing them of the controversy. “Part of the Republican agenda is that the government can’t do everything. That’s exactly what these groups have done with these grants.”

Sheryl Stevens, executive director of the Orange school district’s teachers union, said she is surprised that the board went so far as to consider a policy with political connotations.

“This is the first time they’ve really gone public on a philosophical issue,” she said. “Before that, it only came up in the school board races.”

But some trustees from the Orange County Board of Education, the Santa Ana and Newport-Mesa school districts and members of other conservative groups praised the Orange trustees for keeping the focus of schools on academics.

“We are concerned about schools becoming the hub of social services, said Viola E. Floth of the conservative nonprofit group Parents Who Care. “My concern is what it does to the family: It replaces family responsibility.”