[ilbegone]

Gil Navarro asks public to pay for conference trip

Stephen Wall, Staff Writer

01/03/2010

San Bernardino County schoolboard member Gil Navarro wants taxpayers to foot the bill for his trip to a conference focusing on the needs of black students.

The money would come out of a $5,000 discretionary fund each board member is given annually to spend on travel and expenses for events sponsored by organizations approved by the board.

But the organizations putting on the February conference are not on the list of approved groups, so Navarro's request requires a board vote.

"I'm alarmed with the high number of African-American students that are dropping out, being kicked out and not receiving the opportunity of completing courses that meet the requirements to attend universities," Navarro said.

In December 2008, the county school board denied Navarro's request to pay a $100 membership fee for him to attend a conference sponsored by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, a nonprofit organization that works to strengthen Latino leadership and political participation.

Board member David Stine said at the time that public money should not be used to pay for membership in any organization that has a special interest, whether it's for "gender or ethnicity or religion."

The county Board of Education today will consider approving Navarro's request to participate in the Feb. 17 conference in Sacramento. Registration is $125 per person.

The seminar is called "Closing the Achievement Gap for African-American Students: Best Practices for Student Success."

It is sponsored by Total School Solutions, an Irvine-based educational consulting firm, in partnership with the Association of California School Administrators and the California Association of African-American Superintendents and Administrators.

Blacks make up about 10 percent of the county's nearly 430,000 kindergarten through 12th-grade students. But the high school dropout rate for blacks is nearly 32 percent - the highest of any group and nearly 10 percentage points above the county average.

If the board approves the request to attend the seminar, Navarro's airfare, hotel, meals, transportation and other expenses would be deducted from his $5,000 budget.