A different perspective on the current state of Jeffco schools

Month: November 2017

Who was Glass’s Arts Academy for: Kids or his Reputation?

Why did Jason Glass just try to shove an arts school down our throats, out of the blue? Was it because Jefferson County needs an arts school? No! It was because DeliverEd said Jason Glass needed a “quick win” to demonstrate that the District could implement his vision.

The reality is, the arts school was a poorly conceived idea that clearly demonstrated Glass’s lack of experience, the hypocrisy of his “listening” and “communication,” and his complete disregard for the financial implications and reality of starting an arts school. The uproar it provoked is evidence that Glass hadn’t bothered to even find out if there’s a need.

My oldest child graduated from Denver School of the Arts (DSA), so I understand the basic concept of an arts school. After what I heard at the School Board meeting on Nov. 14, it’s clear I have more of an understanding of what it takes to create an Arts school than do Glass and District staff.

There were so many things wrong with this proposal that I don’t even know where to start.

I guess I’ll start with what people describe as Glass’s strength – communication. Did he even discuss the concept of an arts academy with anyone? I’ve heard there was a meeting on October 26th (a night when he probably knew people would be distracted by a BOE candidate forum). No one I know knew anything about this meeting in advance, or has heard anything about what happened.

Based on the surprised reaction to the subsequent “grapevine” news that an arts academy would be discussed at the upcoming Board meeting, I’d say that Glass certainly didn’t live up to his reputation as a communicator. Teachers were caught completely by surprise and universally opposed the idea, even Glass’s usual parent supporters and Support Jeffco Kids. Glass wants people to believe he listens and communicates, but actions speak louder than words. He listens to and interacts with people who support him, but when HE wants to do something, does he really listen and want input? Not in this case.

Let me address some of the financial aspects of the proposed Arts School:

  • Renovation Cost. District staff estimate that it will cost around $500K to make the vacant Sobesky building usable for an Arts school, including new doors, a dance floor, a new roof and a raised ceiling. I think anyone who knows Sobesky was shocked at hearing this, since we were told the reason special education services was moved out of the building several years ago was that it was uninhabitable. And then the complete shocker was that the building’s FCI was 28 — better than the 31 FCI at Wheat Ridge. More troubling, though, is that less than 8 months after what the Board described as a “budget crisis,” where is $500k coming from to upgrade? Or did the budget crisis miraculously go away when Jason Glass needed to make himself look effective?
  • Operating Cost. The District just closed aging Pleasant View Elementary to save $600k yearly in operating costs. Won’t the annual operating costs of Sobesky, another old building, be similar? Where is this additional $600k magically going to come from? What will have to be cut to pay for these costs? Or, if Glass did miraculously find this money, what better uses could it go to? Many teachers have suggested it be channeled into supporting arts programs at neighborhood schools. But the District response would probably be that that has to be done with SBB.
  • Speaking of SBB, were the SBB implications of the Arts school clearly considered? It seemed clear from the Board discussion that the Arts Academy was an attempt to prevent Denver from getting state funding for the 90 Jeffco students who go to DSA. Is the District so naive as to think that just because Jeffco starts an arts academy, kids won’t continue to go to DSA? Let’s be serious. Kids, and parents, know quality programs. DSA has a sterling reputation and is one of the top-ranked high schools in the state. It also has programs that Glass didn’t include in his proposal, such as creative writing and music.

The fact of the matter is that while a Jeffco Arts Academy may retain some kids, DSA will still get Jeffco kids, especially in the start-up years – so the true losers will be other neighborhood Jeffco schools. And the loss will be more significant than the misleading 1-2 students per school that a Cabinet member told the Board. Maybe the Cabinet is making the assumption that NO Jeffco kids will go to DSA. But it doesn’t take a math genius to work that out. Even in the first year of the Academy, schools will lose more than the 1-2 students projected. Considering that middle schools would lose 150 kids (grades 6-8) to the Academy and there are 20 middle schools, that works out to 6.5 kids, on average, per middle school. It is reasonable to expect that schools closer to the Academy would lose more while schools farther away would lose fewer. The numbers are even more pronounced for high schools, once the Academy is operating as a 6-12 school. In this case, the Arts Academy would draw 200 students from 17 high schools, an average of 12 per school, but once again more pronounced at closer schools. Wheat Ridge, Lakewood, Jefferson, Golden and Alameda could expect the loss of 15-20 students each. That’s the equivalent of $100,000 SBB dollars, or more than one teacher, per school. Were these consequences fully thought out?

And what about staffing? If my memory serves me correctly, DSA holds auditions in November or early December. If the Arts School is approved by the Board for an August 2018 opening, how would there be enough lead-up time to staff up, where would teachers be hired from, where would auditions be held, and who would hold them? Would the school’s teachers be hired away from our neighborhood schools, putting dents in the continuity of already existing Jeffco programs? And before starting a new school, wouldn’t teachers need time to develop the curriculum?

Finally, the budgeted eight teachers is not adequate to teach 200 students core subjects plus their specialty areas – unless you plan to have dance teachers teaching areas they’re not trained in such as math.

Once again, Glass’ concept may look good from a high level, but once you dive into the details, it is poorly conceived.

The Board was right to put the brakes on something that was moving way too fast, based on a 3-year-old survey that found that one of the things people were looking for in the District was an arts school.

It’s funny. The day before the Board meeting, DeliverEd recommended that the District find a “quick win” to help sell Glass’s “Vision.” Was the Arts Academy recommendation the “quick win” Glass was looking for?

This recommendation was certainly “quick,” but it was not going to be a win for anyone. Fortunately, the Board saved us, at least temporarily, from a potentially costly decision that would have affected the District’s finances, neighborhood schools and kids who opted to attend such a dubious “start-up.” This recommendation seems to have been aimed more at advancing of Glass’s stature than serving the District or our kids.

Jason Glass is a Fraud!

The dictionary defines “fraud” as:

a person or thing intended to deceive others, typically by unjustifiably claiming or being credited with accomplishments or qualities.

Using that definition, Jason Glass is a fraud.

Jason Glass arrived in the District with great fanfare as someone who would listen to everyone in the District and bring the District together.

He has done neither of those, actually quite the opposite.

Jason Glass, it seems, only wants to listen to those people who praise, support and agree with him.

  1. Community Critic. I was personally taken aback when on only his second day on the job Jason Glass labelled me “community critic” here:

You can see the original exchange here: https://storify.com/COJasonGlass/profile-of-an-ideal-graduate-twitter-conversation

While I don’t necessarily mind being labelled a “critic”, I was shocked that someone only on the job for 2 days, with a stated intent to listen and unify, called someone who expresses their opinion (and I was advocating for a focus on College and Career Readiness in the tweet exchange) “community critic”. What, am I the only person in the community who thinks that Jeffco schools can do better? Do you get labeled “critic” for not accepting mediocrity? Do you get labeled “critic” for not bowing down to the new King of Jeffco schools? Was that an attempt to silence anyone else who might be looking for some accountability from our school District?

It certainly sent a pretty strong message – “Agree with me or you too will be labelled “critic”. Is that what you would expect from someone who states they will listen and unify? Not in my book! Was this intended to be a message to anyone else who might think a bit differently? I think so!

2. Listening Tour. Did Jason Glass really get an opportunity to listen to everyone during his initial “Listening Tour”? I think not. His Listening Tour was held during a summer business day when many working people weren’t able to attend. What he got were teachers, stay-at-homes and retired people. Nice idea, not well thought out and certainly not representative of the District.

3. Deleted Tweets. Over the course of the next several months Glass and I engaged in several other twitter exchanges. On several instances his tweets, some of which could have been interpreted as a bit testy, were soon deleted. Not exactly full transparency there.

4. Failure to investigate allegations of lying by Cabinet Member. Through Glass’ blog, twitter and email I have made allegations of repeated lying by a District Cabinet Member to the Board, teachers and parents. I have offered to meet with him and provide supporting evidence of that to Glass. He has completely ignored my allegations and requests to meet. This is not the definition of “listening” that I would expect. (https://advancejeffco.blog/2017/05/24/3-questions-jeffco/)

5. No record of moving education needle. Glass doesn’t like it when I bring this up, but the truth of the matter is that his record of academic growth and achievement in Eagle County is worse than Jeffco’s own mediocre record. How is he supposed to be the great Jeffco savior when he couldn’t bring any great academic growth to a district 12 times smaller over the course of 4 years? (http://improvejeffcoschools.org/index.php/2017/05/05/a-different-perspective-on-jeffco-schools-new-superintendent/, http://improvejeffcoschools.org/index.php/2017/05/21/disappointed-in-the-hiring-of-dr-glass-as-superintendent/, http://improvejeffcoschools.org/index.php/2017/09/11/the-board-failed-on-its-most-important-task-hiring-a-superintendent-who-could-move-the-education-needle/)

6. Vision statement. Let’s be clear. Glass replaced the collaboratively developed, community driven Jeffco 2020 with a Vision that he singularly (well, with help from his Assistant Tom) developed. Yes, he will say it was developed with community input. But what community input did he listen to and totally disregard just because it didn’t fit into his ‘vision”. Early on he was engaging me in an attempt to get someone to mention Entrepreneurship so I know he always planned to include that, no matter what he heard from the community. Jeffco 2020 was a community Vision, Jeffco Generations is a Glass vision. That seems to be a big difference to me.

7. Involvement in Board campaign. One second Glass writes: “As a public servant, I’m prohibited from encouraging any vote for or against any issue or person on the ballot.” But hadn’t he already started his “On the Issues” series on October 17th, late in the campaign season and addressed issues that supporters of challengers for Board seats were talking about. Was that a coincidence? Why did he feel he had to address those issues at that time? Shouldn’t he have shown some restraint until after the election to eliminate any appearance to partiality? Absolutely. But he didn’t in only a thinly veiled attempt to provide assistance to the incumbents. I also asked him why he didn’t include a rebuttal to the current Board members’ lies regarding how compensation increases slowed teacher turnover. His response, no longer available, was for me to stay tuned.

My point is that an impartial Superintendent, which is what we should have, didn’t/couldn’t remain impartial and used his voice and the power of the District’s communication distribution system to publish material unequivocally supporting the Board incumbents. Legal, but is that what you would expect? Not me.

8. Accountability. I found it extremely disappointing and discomforting to learn that Glass’ contract did not contain any incentive based compensation tied to academic performance and achievement similar to Cindy’s and Dan’s contracts. I don’t know if the Board or Glass suggested this, but I have my suspicions. I do know that when I walk in to a job I relish the opportunity to earn more money by meeting certain, well spelled out goals and objectives. I have confidence I’ll meet them. From Glass’ perspective I would even worry about not having the same type of contract structure as my predecessors as this may not be the impression I would want to make. But I guess Glass has a different outlook than me and values money, and his bargaining ability, more than the perception he creates. Certainly, based on the academic performance record he had in Eagle County, if I was him, I wouldn’t want performance based compensation in my contract either.

9. GT Program Funding. I have been a long-time and vocal advocate for creating a committee to discuss sustainable funding for the District’s HS GT program as directed by the Board in February. I engaged Glass on this immediately after his Listening Tour. After initially saying that he would bring this up with his Cabinet he then put this off for 2 months, ostensibly so that another HS GT parents’ meeting could be held in late September. He also asked for recommendations for the composition of that committee. The suggestions, from not just me, included a parent, a GT Teacher, someone to represent the non-GT students at Wheat Ridge, a representative of the SAC, a representative of JAGC, someone who was familiar with the creation of the HS GT program and several District people. Yet, the final committee was made up of parents selected by Glass (not by parents similar to the process the District uses to select new principals), and a community member who happens to be a member of both the SAC and JAGC, but who was not selected by the SAC or JAGC to represent them and who does not even have a child attending WR. This, in effect, shut out voices that loudly advocated for the committee and for Wheat Ridge and its issues while providing Glass with the cover to say that various groups had representation (although they may not have represented the views of various groups). The end result of this committee also happened to make the GT community happy, but only at the expense of other students at Wheat Ridge, kids who didn’t have a voice on the committee. Once again, Glass attempted to manipulate the composition of the committee to exclude voices he knew would be difficult to manage.

10. Block on Twitter (you can see some of this in 7 above). A key component of Glass’ “aura” and appeal is his supposed willingness and desire to listen and communicate. Nearly everyone loves him for this. He blogs and tweets during the business day and encourages people to engage with him on the District website

Jeffco students, parents, families, staff, and community members may engage with Dr. Glass via Twitter @COJasonGlass.

Unfortunately, his actions speak louder than words. When he doesn’t like what people are saying he merely blocks them. People can’t see his posts and he can’t see theirs.

 

You are blocked from following @COJasonGlass and viewing @COJasonGlass’s Tweets.

I can understand some of the reasons for blocking people. I’ve done it myself when people have sent me racist tweets and sexually explicit pictures. However, I’ve never done that with Glass. I’ve advocated for 100% College and Career Readiness, I’ve compared the mediocreJeffco academic growth and achievement scores with the even worse growth and achievement scores in Eagle County where Glass had 4 years, in a District 12x smaller to make improvements. I’ve questioned his ability to find $300k for an assistant and consulting company when only a few short months ago a school was closed in an effort to save only twice as much money. I’ve questioned his ethics in getting involved in the campaign. I questioned why he doesn’t have pay based on performance in his contract. For that I was blocked. And, I’m not the only person that’s been blocked as Glass attempts to project an image of “listening” while also attempting to protect his personal brand and avoid listening to all views. If he’s going to say he is willing to engage, then he should engage, with everyone, particularly if he offers that opportunity on a District web site and uses business time to tweet.

Jason Glass is a fraud.

He wants everyone to think one thing, that he listens to everyone, but his actions, toward people that have differing perspectives, is quite the opposite.