Letter to the Editor:
The following was read to the Burbank Board of Education on Thursday, July 24, 2025:
I am here this evening to express my disappointment and disapproval of the job you are doing as trustees of the Burbank Unified School District. The community has legitimate and serious questions about your management strategies and the financial status of the district. Questions that need answers if you are to be trusted to oversee hundreds of millions of dollars of public money and the education of the youth of Burbank.
Tonight, I am going to ask 2 questions about your management strategies.
My first question is about the role of the Board Clerk. California Education Code section 35145 requires that school boards keep complete and accurate minutes of their meetings. Your BUSD by-law 9123 requires that the Board Clerk certify the actions taken by the Board and maintain such records or reports as required by law. All of you as trustees, apart from Miss Cano, have served as Board Clerk during your time in office. In as much as state law requires the Board to keep minutes of meetings and your by-laws assign that duty to the clerk, how do you explain the fact that you did not ensure that current and accurate Board minutes were kept and approved as required by law?
My 2nd question is about the process used to write contracts. Students in this district are required to use the MLA format on their writing assignments, teachers and other staff are required to complete forms like report cards and IEPs using proper sentence structure and completing all parts of the forms. Parents must fill out enrollment papers; field trip permits and emergency contact information by completing all parts legibly to assure it is acceptable. Yet you, the trustees of the district, have accepted and voted for contracts that are incomplete and done in a manner that can be best described as messy. Missing items like hourly rates, scope of the work etc. would never be accepted by a teacher if these were assignments turned in for grading. Again, as trustees, is the community to understand that this is standard procedure for the elected representatives, but not for everyone else?
I hope that you will consider these and the many other questions and concerns your constituency has as it relates to the job you took and swore an oath to fulfill. If you are unable to do these things, perhaps you should consider resigning.
Linda Wamsley
Burbank
