Category: School Board (Page 5 of 8)

District says recent 1st Amendment ruling does not provide precedent in Colorado

June 4, 2018 / ijsadmin

With a recent ruling by a Federal Court judge in support of 1^st Amendment rights relating to President Trump’s pernicious and unconstitutional practice of blocking critics on Twitter, I sent an email to the Board of Education relating to Jason Glass’s similar, Trump-like, behavior.

While Jason Glass coincidentally unblocked my account, the response from Amanda Stevens of the Board was a bit puzzling.

Amanda’s response was:

“Dr. Glass and district leadership enthusiastically support the 1^st Amendment to the United States Constitution. In fact, even though this Southern District Federal Court decision does not provide precedent for Colorado, I have confirmed with Craig Hess, district legal counsel, that our practices are in compliance with Justice Naomi Reice Buchwald’s decision.”

And, what exactly does that mean, Amanda?

Are you saying that this Federal ruling has no applicability in Jeffco schools and Colorado? Why then did the plaintiffs’ attorney in this case say the ruling “should guide all of the public officials who are communicating with their constituents through social media.”

And Amanda, in light of this ruling and if Jason Glass is blocking constituents on Twitter, how can you say that the District’s “practices are in compliance with Justice Naomi Reice Buchwald’s decision”?

You can only say that if Jason Glass unblocked people whose viewpoints he didn’t want to hear before you sent a reply.

The fact of the matter is that Jason Glass was violating the constitutional rights of taxpayers in this District. However, in the interest of protecting him, you can’t admit it and go on to provide some meaningless mumbo-jumbo from world renowned constitutional law expert (just joking), Jeffco Schools legal counsel Craig Hess.

Guess what – the law applies to Jason Glass too!

Is Jason Glass illegally violating constituents’ 1st Amendment Rights?

June 4, 2018 / ijsadmin

On May 28th I sent the following email to the Board of Education as Jason Glass, the great “listener,” has blocked me on Twitter since late October or early November 2017:

Please direct your employee, Jason Glass, to stop violating constituents’ 1^st Amendment Rights and unblock the Twitter accounts he has blocked. A federal judge has just ruled that his blocking of accounts is unlawful.

I would assume that you fully support the 1^st Amendment, as I do, as the amendment was written to ensure free and open speech. Sometimes we may not like what that speech is, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that someone doesn’t have the constitutional right to say it.

According to cnn.com, a federal judge, Naomi Reice Buchwald, in New York ruled Wednesday, May 23rd, that President Trump is in violation of the Constitution when he blocks users on Twitter, because Twitter is considered a “public forum” when used by public officials to communicate.

“We hold that portions of the @realDonaldTrump account — the ‘interactive space’ where Twitter users may directly engage with the content of the President’s tweets — are properly analyzed under the “‘public forum’ doctrines set forth by the Supreme Court, that such space is a designated public forum, and that the blocking of the plaintiffs based on their political speech constitutes viewpoint discrimination that violates the First Amendment,” Buchwald wrote.

“We’re pleased with the court’s decision, which reflects a careful application of core First Amendment principles to government censorship on a new communications platform,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight Institute. “The President’s practice of blocking critics on Twitter is pernicious and unconstitutional, and we hope this ruling will bring it to an end.”

Katie Fallow, a staff attorney at Knight who represented the plaintiffs, said the ruling “should guide all of the public officials who are communicating with their constituents through social media.“

Jason Glass has enthusiastically supported the 1^st Amendment rights of students to rally against gun violence and he has enthusiastically supported the 1^st Amendment rights of teachers to rally in support of additional funding for public education. Fortunately in the United States, Jason Glass, a public official, cannot be selective in whose 1^st Amendment rights he supports.

Please immediately direct your employee, Jason Glass, to fully support the 1^st Amendment and a Federal Judge’s ruling that directly relates to the Twitter accounts of public officials and remove the illegal block he has placed on my @bobgcolorado twitter account and any others he has blocked.

Thank you.

Innovation Fund – Another poorly thought out idea by Glass

January 14, 2018 / ijsadmin

The difference between a Visionary and Operational organizational leader became painfully evident at this week’s Board meeting.

I agree that an Innovation Fund, managed well, has its place and could derive benefits for the District.

However, once again, as is becoming a common theme with Glass, the implementation details were poorly thought out and demonstrate the operational inexperience and incompetence of Glass and his District staff.

First, even though this may be a good idea, you don’t raid District reserves that have already been depleted by adding seats for the District’s controversial move to a K-5, 6-8 configuration. This puts reserves at the very low end of the recommended level. It also seems extremely dangerous to me, given the length, and now velocity of the economic upturn. As someone who has experienced multiple downturns, that scares me every day. Therefore, instead of planning for the inevitable, as prudent and experienced leaders would do, Glass, and the Board, have put the District into a position of financial weakness if the economy collapses in the short term. All of this for an idea that is not an absolute necessity.

Second, I don’t understand why this needed to happen so quickly, or even how there is any chance that fund uses will show results by the end of this school and fiscal year. Grant recipients won’t be announced until the week of March 5th. This means that awardees will only have approximately 2 months to use the funds and show results before the end of the year. I don’t see how anything meaningful can come about in that short of time. The proposed timeline for 2018-19 is even more puzzling. For that school year recipients won’t be announced until November. While this provides roughly a semester for awardees to implement and obtain results, it completely ignores full-year, or first semester innovation opportunities. When added together, wouldn’t it be better to slow this process down and award grants in the April time frame for the 2018-19 school year? Wouldn’t this give grant awardees planning time that would better ensure the success of their ideas? To account for the District’s budget cycle, grants could be awarded contingent upon the Board approving 2018-19 Operating Funds, removing the necessity of depleting Reserves. If during the upcoming Budget cycle the Board prioritizes other District needs higher than the Innovation Fund, then the awardees do not receive their grants. They would know by June, still have time for planning and eliminating the need to pull from reserves.

All of this raises the question: “What’s more important in Jeffco, a Visionary or Operational leader?” Clearly, Glass wants to be a Visionary, and with this recommendation he wanted a quick “win”. However, he has demonstrated time and time again with his poorly thought out ideas (e.g. no clue regarding implications of and the difficulty of starting an Arts Academy, a HS GT RIE committee that utterly failed in its stated purpose of finding program sustainability and now a poorly thought out Innovation fund created from District reserves) that he and his District staff have no clue, are incompetent and are out of their league operationally.

A Vision is nice, but Glass and his staff have proven that they won’t have the ability to implement it, merely reinforcing DeliverEd’s findings. I guess we shouldn’t expect anything less as the Board hired someone from a District 12 times smaller than Jeffco and without the operational experience necessary to manage a district the size of ours.

District Staff Hides Fact MAP data shows decrease in Growth Rates

January 13, 2018 / ijsadmin

At the January 11^th Board meeting, Matt Flores and his staff of PhD’s went way out of their way to hide the true facts regarding Winter MAP data.

Starting out by saying they were extremely happy with the data, on several occasions they highlighted that the Growth data was better than the growth data in 2015-16, except for 4^th Grade Math.

Yet, the true facts are that Reading growth rates stayed the same or decreased in 4 out of 8 grades in comparison to 2016-2017 and decreased in 6 out of 8 grades for Math.

That’s not a trend we should be seeing!

In addition, Matt destroyed any credibility he had by trying to snow the Board into believing that 4^th grade growth rates in Jeffco were worse in comparison to 2015-16 because 4^th grade math concepts were harder. He completely ignored the fact that 4^th grade math concepts were harder for EVERYONE taking the MAP. Nice try Matt, but after that, why should we ever believe anything he ever says?

The Board, and Matt and his team, should have focused on the disturbing downward growth rate trend. Instead, Matt had his PhDs work overtime to perpetuate the “everything is going great in Jeffco” myth. As a result, no action gets taken and our kids continue to suffer.

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

November 26, 2017 / ijsadmin

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 26^th (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!

November 3, 2017 / ijsadmin

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.

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 17^th, 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.

Board treats many central Jeffco taxpayers & students like 2nd class citizens

October 31, 2017 / ijsadmin

While schools in central Jeffco continue to deteriorate, the Board prioritizes spending $32M (originally $67M in 3B) on moving 6^th graders to middle school and building schools for brand new Jeffco residents.

Is it fair to longtime residents of Jeffco who have paid taxes to support their neighborhood, and Jeffco, schools for years and years to have the Board tell them there is no money to maintain their schools? How is it that the Board can find at least $32M to controversially move 6^th graders to Middle School and spend millions more in building brand new schools for people who have just moved to Jeffco in new housing developments?

I don’t think that is fair or equitable.

Of the high schools, Wheat Ridge, built in 1956, has the District’s worst Facility Condition Index. Green Mountain and Arvada are not far behind. There are reports of black ooze at Alameda and asbestos at Jefferson. There are similar situations at the District’s Elementary and Middle schools in these older areas.

Haven’t the residents of these areas been paying taxies longer than anyone else? Why should they, and the students attending schools in these areas, be treated like 2^nd class citizens? Is it because some of these areas are some of the poorer areas in Jeffco?

I understand 3B didn’t pass, but if the Board can find money to build Three Creeks and additions to Sierra, Drake and Dunstan (with more coming) couldn’t they have chosen not to have made the K-5, 6-8 decision universal and to use some of that saved money to maintain the school buildings the District already has?

The school Board made a decision. They chose to implement a K-5, 6-8 plan that was optional, not supported by academic studies, questioned by the community and costly.

The school Board chose to ignore the needs of long time, lower income communities in favor of newer, more affluent Jeffco residents.

I think the school Board didn’t listen to the community and made poor choices. Unfortunately the children living in those ignored communities are the ones who will suffer.

Accountability? Not in Jeffco with Mitchell, Rupert & Harmon.

October 30, 2017 / ijsadmin

In a blow to transparency and students and parents at low performing schools in the District, the incumbent Board members don’t think that low performing schools should be accountable to the Board.

In response to a question during the October 25^th Candidate Forum:

“Would you support low performing schools having to come to the Board to discuss improvement plans?”

Mitchell, Harmon and Rupert replied “No”, while Shields and Van Gieson replied “Yes”.

I guess this isn’t a surprise as the current Board doesn’t seem to want to hold anyone accountable for the atrocious education achievement and growth we see in Jeffco.

You would normally think that the Superintendent would have a vested interest in improving education results, but didn’t the Board let him completely off the hook by giving him a compensation package that contained NO education performance incentives similar to what the two previous Superintendent’s had?

The pattern, and culture, is that accountability doesn’t seem to be high on the list of priorities for our current Board members, and that isn’t good for our kids and District. These are just examples of a “We don’t care about education results” attitude in our District, that starts from the top.

But to make things worse, isn’t the Board hypocritical when they fully support performance reviews for the 3-5 year Charter renewals?

In a second question, the candidates were asked:

“Charters come before the Board every 3-5 years for renewal consideration. Would you support having neighborhood schools do the same for performance reviews?”

Again, Mitchell, Harmon and Rupert replied “No”, while Shields and Van Gieson replied “Yes”.

However, Mitchell added he didn’t support these reviews because:

“We don’t have contracts with our neighborhood schools”

To which Harmon agreed.

It is absolutely shocking to hear Board members emphatically state that they don’t have “contracts’ with our neighborhood schools.

Isn’t it the Board’s job to ensure high-quality education? Isn’t it the job of Board members to hold the Superintendent, Principals and teachers accountable for providing high-quality education and obtaining results? Isn’t that a contract with the students, parents and taxpayers of this District? Is the Board saying the District doesn’t have a contract with the neighborhood school to pay the principal and teachers to provide high-quality education? What are principals and teachers getting paid for then?

In my career, employees usually get paid to deliver results and are held accountable for providing value in exchange for earning that salary. I guess that our Board views things differently here in Jeffco.

Brad Rupert and Susan Harmon don’t tell the truth.

October 28, 2017 / ijsadmin

Surprisingly, Support Jeffco Kids (SJK) and I agree on one thing. We don’t like lies or liars. In a post published on October 15^th, SJK wrote:

It is never okay to lie to get elected. NEVER.

I agree, but I take that a step further in that I don’t think it is EVER okay to lie PERIOD.

Yet, isn’t that what both Brad Rupert and Susan Harmon did at the League of Women Voters Candidate forum on October 17^th in response to a question on the sources of their campaign funding?

I was there. Ron Mitchell was the first of the incumbents to answer and I will give him credit in that he took time to think about the question before answering. Brad Rupert was the next incumbent and he answered adamantly that the “vast majority” of funding came from within the District. Susan Harmon was the last of the incumbents and she used Brad’s exact phrase and replied “vast majority” came from within the District.

The problem is that those statements are just not true. Certainly we could argue the meaning of “vast”, but unfortunately for Brad using the phrase “vast majority” for 58% is intentionally deceptive and falls into Webster’s definition of lie for me. It is worse for Susan.

For Brad, $22,279, by my calculations from http://tracer.sos.colorado.gov/PublicSite/SearchPages/CandidateDetail.aspx?SeqID=37387, of $53,007 in total contributions, 42% was contributed to his campaign from outside the District. That is not a “vast majority” from inside the District, Brad. The largest contribution of $20,514 came from a Committee controlled by the state teacher’s union (CEA). Brad also received $4,010 from the Jefferson County Education Association (JCEA), or local teachers’ union for a total of $24,524 from the teacher unions.

For Susan, it is worse. A MAJORITY of her funding actually came from OUTSIDE of the District, $24,847 of $49,626, or 50+%. Susan’s largest contribution of $20,514 also came from a Committee controlled by CEA.

So, in front of a packed room of people, with complete conviction and without hesitation, both candidates didn’t tell the truth in a blatant attempt to deceive the audience in an attempt to get elected

I know what I think of those candidates. Truthfulness is one of my core values. I literally cannot stand people who intentionally deceive, don’t tell the truth and lie.

I wonder what Support Jeffco Kids thinks of their candidates who can’t tell the truth now?

To a lesser degree, it is disconcerting to me where Brad and Susan’s money is coming from. It is coming from the teachers’ unions. We saw what happened when the unions contributed nearly $275k to elect their “clean slate” in 2015. It resulted in nearly $40M in teacher compensation increases over the past 2 years.

If the incumbents win in 2017, will the unions be repaid again? The incumbents are already talking about teacher compensation increases and as we saw last week, they will lie to keep the voters from knowing where their contributions are coming from.

Our School Board has failed!

October 18, 2017 / ijsadmin

You only have to listen to the incumbent Board members tell us what they have accomplished in the last two years to realize that they have failed.

What do you hear them say most often?

They have returned civility to the Board room.
They hired a new Superintendent.
They have slowed teacher “churn”.

However, it’s especially disappointing that you never hear them talk about the improvements in education they have fostered in the District. But with 68%% of Jeffco grads not College and Career ready and more than 55% of 3^rd Graders (in 2016) not meeting state standards, I guess they can’t really do that. In addition, removing incentive based compensation from the new Superintendent’s contract certainly isn’t an indication that education is a primary focus. Actions speak louder than words in my book.

They also don’t talk about their failure to get needed Mill levy and Bond measures approved by the voters last November, the only major school district in the state that didn’t get tax measures approved. 3A and 3B were messes and the incumbent Board oversaw and approved those.

Still, I think it is important to examine what the Board has been touting as their accomplishments:

It is misleading at best when the incumbent Board members talk about returning civility to the Board room. Wasn’t it their supporters and the pro-recall organizers who created the most disruption in the Board room? I’m not sure this really qualifies as an “accomplishment”.

I won’t disagree that the Board hired a new Superintendent. But, the real questions are ‘Why did the Board hire a new Superintendent? And “What was wrong with the previous Superintendent?” Unfortunately, again it doesn’t appear that the primary reason was to improve education in Jeffco. If you compare either Jeffco’s education achievement or growth results with Eagle County (here, here and here), where the new Superintendent came from, the Jeffco results are better. We didn’t get someone who has a history of moving the education needle. By education performance measures we didn’t get someone who was better. In addition, the incumbent Board candidates like to continually remind us that they think it is important to have “continuity” in the Board and District leadership positions, but it looks like that only applies to their positions as they were the cause of a drastic change in “continuity” in the more important Superintendent position.

Finally, the Board members like to talk about how they have reduced teacher “churn”, the turnover of teachers each year, a result of their nearly $40M in teacher compensation increases over the past two years. Unfortunately this claim is mere speculation as the District does not conduct exit interviews of teachers. Every year teachers, like many people, change jobs for a wide variety of reasons such as retiring, moving for family reasons, pregnancy, changing careers, and yes, moving for compensation reasons. But, to claim that the $40M in compensation increases had a direct impact in reducing teacher turnover is completely unsupportable and misleading, and demonstrates that the incumbent Board members don’t really understand the number they are using (http://improvejeffcoschools.org/index.php/2017/06/26/the-continued-spreading-of-alternative-facts-regarding-teacher-turnover/).

For these reasons, and others, I think it is time for a change in the composition of the Board. We need a Board that is focused on student achievement, a Board that is focused on accountability and a Board that doesn’t try to avoid and mislead us about what they have done and “accomplished”.

It is time that we have a more balanced Board that actually listens and better represents the diversity of thought in our District.

I will be voting for that change by voting for Erica Shields and Matt Van Gieson for School Board in November.