Pre-Election Celebrations of GUSD’s Financial State 1


Glendale is not laying off teachers or employees because it has built up reserves, emphasized school district superintendent Dr. Michael Escalante in remarks at the Glendale Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast this morning. At a school district board meeting a few weeks earlier, he led several GUSD employees in public, televised thanks to school board members for this fiscal prudence.

Escalante delivered the same message in a March 3 letter to school families. Contrasting Glendale’s financial footing and policies with those of surrounding districts, like LAUSD, faced with the necessity of laying off large numbers of teachers, he wrote:

Due to our strong financial position, the GUSD Board made the decision to draw on our reserves to provide a stable teaching and learning environment. Glendale students deserve the best education. Not one permanent teacher will lose their job next year in GUSD.

..By continuing to be fiscally responsible, we are focused on providing a stable environment for high quality teaching and learning. We appreciate our community’s support as we work to meet your expectations for an exemplary public education experience for the students of Glendale Unified School District.


Parents and the community deserve to know that the Glendale Unified School district board has managed funds over the years so that reserves are now available to balance the state shortfall in education funds.

Citizens should know that the superintendent’s public praise for district leadership (his supervisors – three running for re-election) is just a few weeks ahead of a school board election with two challengers. The pre-election praise has an air of endorsement which belongs in a political mailer, not a letter home to parents.

The timing of this celebration isn’t completely without cause. Districts around Glendale are laying off teachers and cutting back on instructional funds. LA Times reporter Steve Lopez wrote in Sunday’s paper that the LA Unified elementary school his child attends is asking each family to contribute $1,000 toward the school budget before May.


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