Don't Believe the Press!

No local newspaper - News-Mirror, Press-Enterprise, or Sun - has contacted any person in YCEA for information on the budget crisis and related issues. Every quote we see in the paper is from a District administrator or school board member.

It is irresponsible reporting to NOT get both sides of a story, and even more irresponsible to get a huge part of a story WRONG.

The first example is the Yucaipa News-Mirror's article from two weeks ago, which stated that YCEA supported the elimination of Class Size Reduction - and misstated it twice in the same article. As a matter of fact, SAVING Class Size Reduction was our #2 item on the list, after our proposal to reconfigure elementary school boundaries and eliminate elementary APs (one item). YCEA wrote a letter to the News-Mirror pointing out the error and requesting a correction, but so far nothing has been published correcting this error. Had reporter Bill Brown contacted YCEA for input, which would be fair and impartial journalism, then this glaring error would not have been printed.

Second, the Press-Enterprise quoted school board member Sue Brown: " 'The district's management team will take five furlough days, and cuts are being made in district office administration,' Brown said." Excuse me? There are NO cuts being made in district office administration! They converted two accountant positions into one in the business office, and didn't rehire a clerk position in human resources. But NO administrator has been let go or reassigned. Not only is Ms. Brown misrepresenting the facts, had a reporter from the Press-Enterprise contacted YCEA for input, which would be fair and impartial journalism, then this glaring error would not have been printed.