Improve Jeffco Schools

A different perspective on the current state of Jeffco schools

Category: Education (Page 4 of 4)

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

November 26, 2017 /

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.

Our School Board has failed!

October 18, 2017 /

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?

  1. They have returned civility to the Board room.
  2. They hired a new Superintendent.
  3. 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 3rd 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.

The Board failed on its most important task – hiring a Superintendent who could move the education needle.

September 11, 2017 /

Recently, there has been a great deal of self-congratulating on the part of our School District and Superintendent relating to Jeffco’s 2016-2017 test scores.

Most recently, we’ve seen an article published by the school district relating to CMAS Achievement.

While it is true that these results may be “all-time highs’, let’s be serious. Should we as parents and taxpayers be happy with results that show that barely 50% of our kids meet state ELA standards? It’s even worse with Math where only 40%, or less, seem to be achieving the state standards. That seems to be acceptance of mediocrity, at best, to me.

However, what is even more disconcerting is the comparison of Jeffco scores to those of Eagle County, where our new Superintendent was “Chief Learner” for 4 years and had plenty of time, within a small district, to make a real impact.

 

I don’t see that impact. In fact, NOT one Grade level or Subject in Eagle has scores better than Jeffco’s, most not even achieving the state “average”. What should we expect in the years to come in Jeffco? A regression to state averages?

What was the Board thinking when they hired someone without a proven record of academic related results? Did they hire a blogger/tweeter over someone who actually has a proven record? Didn’t the Board say that this was one of the most important decisions a Board could make? Did the Board even consider academic results or were they just bamboozled by a smooth talking social media specialist and “visionary”?

This Board didn’t do their job on their most important task!

We needed someone who could really move the needle with our kids. Eagle County’s results don’t indicate we got that. Those results point to the failure of our Board. We have a dire need for change on the Board to really move Jeffco forward.

Has Jason Glass met with anyone who might disagree with him? Quick Answer: No!

September 7, 2017 /

Support Jeffco Kids (SJK) has recently written about how many groups and individuals Jason Glass has met with in his first 39 days as Jeffco Schools Superintendent. Well, Congratulations!

However, do you see any individuals or groups on this list who might possibly have a different perspective on education or the District than him, other than politicians? Has he reached out to anyone that might fit into that category?

I don’t see anyone that might fit into that category on the list that was so carefully curated by SJK.

Let’s start with the great “listening” tour. This tour was held during normal work hours for most working people (except the session late in the day in Evergreen) and during the summer. This conveniently brought out the teachers, stay-at-homes and retirees. Not a lot of working people made these meetings. When I brought this up to Glass during a Twitter exchange he said that he would consider holding meetings that might be more convenient for working people.

He may have considered holding additional meetings, but they certainly didn’t happen. In my opinion, he missed out on getting a different set of questions than he got from the teachers, retirees and stay-at-homes. Was this an act of omission or intentional?

What about the parents of the kid who was threatened at Governor’s Ranch Elementary School last year who would like a meeting with him to discuss? Glass’ schedule is SOOOO busy that he can’t fit these parents in until September 29th. Really??

Request to meet with Superintendent

When asked if she planned to meet with the superintendent, the mom said she put in a request.

“Dr. Glass has yet to reach out to us,” she said. “We were told the earliest Glass could meet with us was Sept. 29.”

Should we really believe that his schedule is completely booked for over 30 days and he can’t find 30 minutes to talk with parents who have a real issue? I’m sorry, but real “leaders” make time to talk with people who have issues and problems and don’t let those issues fester.

Has he reached out to ANYONE who might not agree with the current District staff and Board? If he really wants to listen he should hear different perspectives. I personally don’t know these people, but has he reached out to anyone from previous Boards (he’s talked to former principals, why not former Board members? Speaking of principals, did Glass reach out to former Wheat Ridge principal Griff Wirth who ran a great school but had issues with the District?)? Has he reached out to anyone from (http://www.eyeonjeffcoschoolboard.com/), Jeffco Students First or people with similar views? Or is it more convenient for him to just wish that the current Board “wins” in November, as he stated during the August Board retreat, so that he doesn’t have to engage people who may not agree with him or the Board?

Glass also knows that I have my own issues with members of the District staff who have blatantly and repeatedly lied to the Board, teachers and parents.

I started with comments posted to his blog on June 2nd and moved on to emails.

From his 3 Questions for Jeffco (https://advancejeffco.blog/2017/05/24/3-questions-jeffco/) blog I wrote:

“We have Cabinet members who intentionally deceive and lie (and I don’t use that word lightly) to the Board, teachers and parents.
Restore some community trust in Denver West by getting rid of the people there who have forgotten who their real constituents are – the students.
Note: I can back up my accusations of intentional deception and lying with documentation and evidence and would appreciate a meeting so I can give that to you.
Let’s talk when you’re settled in!”

He completely ignored this comment.

I reiterated my accusation in an August 10th email:

“ I don’t know what xxx told you and I certainly don’t know what he expects to accomplish with another parents meeting. The first one was an absolute disaster as he did nothing other than present inaccurate, misleading and deceptive numbers, essentially lying to the group. He was insulting, and parents and students alike called him out on his lies and attempts at deception. … Why won’t he have a discussion with the principal and SAC? Most likely it is because they will tell him that the numbers he is showing to people are intentionally deceptive and therefore complete lies.”

Don’t you think if someone accused members of your District staff of lying you would want to hear more?

Well, not Jason Glass!

In addition he has delayed and avoided getting people to talk about sustainable funding for the District’s HS GT program. Granted the Board directed collaborative approach to finding sustainable funding was made in February before Glass became Superintendent, but he clearly stated that he had been briefed on the issue during his “listening” tour, very early in his tenure. He now “owns” that issue and shouldn’t try to disclaim responsibility. However, to date the only thing he has done is to delay holding a collaborative discussion to some unknown date in the future, inexplicably tied to another meeting with only one set of stakeholders – the HS GT parents. That’s certainly not my definition of “collaborative” or even “listening” to all sides of the issue. And that’s not even talking about how badly the last District held meeting with the parents went .

He states that he has listened to me on my issues:

 

The funny thing is, I did check my emails. On July 25th he said that he was bringing the GT issue up to his Cabinet. Yet, his response to my follow-up inquiry of how the cabinet meeting went was to back track on getting people together to discuss the issue by holding another HS GT Parents’ meeting in September (still not scheduled by the way). And then, only AFTER that meeting get people to talk about the issue.

My question to him was WHY? Why not begin talking now with ALL of the stakeholders instead of just the HS GT parents?

There was no response to those questions.

Once again, it seems to me that he is delaying and avoiding a real discussion on difficult issues with people who may not agree with his views.

Therefore, I don’t count what he is doing as real “listening”.

Glass knows how to contact me via Twitter, email or phone. I’m happy to make time to discuss my issues. Until that happens, count me as someone who isn’t buying the “listening” bill of goods he’s selling and SJK has bought.

If Glass is only going to listen to people who support him and repeatedly delays and avoids listening to all sides of hard issues, can he, or his supporters, really claim that he’s listening?

Not in my book!

Should I embrace or be insulted by being labeled “Community Critic” by Jason Glass?

July 7, 2017 /

Or, should we all be more concerned when the new Superintendent, with the stated goal of bridging the divide in the community, 2 days into his position, labels someone with potentially different views than his “community critic”? This is what is most disappointing to me. If he truly wants to listen to all sides, then no one should be a “critic”.

In his blog, Jason Glass labeled me “community critic” while posting a twitter exchange we had regarding the Profile of an Ideal Jeffco Graduate.

Since I prefer to think of myself as a GT and education advocate, I was insulted when I read that label.

Yet, Dictionary.com defines “critic” as:

noun

  1. a person who judges, evaluates, or criticizes.
  2. a person who judges, evaluates, or analyzes literary or artistic works,dramatic or musical performances, or the like, especially for anewspaper or magazine.
  3. a person who tends too readily to make captious, trivial, or harsh judgments; faultfinder.

Initially, I applied definition number 3 to the label. However, my wife counseled that definition number 1 may be applicable. The truth is, I don’t know what definition Glass applied to me. However, I do think that someone who loudly and proudly touts his 2 master’s degrees and PhD would understand that the word “critic” is ambiguous enough to mean different things to different people.

I would also think that someone who touts Deliberative Democracy would treat participants in his conversations with civility and respect (“Conscientious”) and labeling participants doesn’t necessarily meet that criteria.

The bottom line is that I’m extremely disappointed in Dr. Glass in his labeling of me as “community critic”. Am I the only “critic” in the community? I think not. Was his intent to intimidate anyone else with different views to keep those views to themselves for fear of also being labeled “community critic”? Again, I don’t know. But, I will say it is not going to intimidate me. Actually, it will have the opposite effect.

Therefore, I’ve decided that I’m going to proudly embrace the label, and role, of “community critic” until such time as we can truly and freely have real conversations about education issues in our district. The district is divided, and it will remain divided until both sides feel that they are being listened to, middle ground is found and compromises made. 5 – 0 votes with no real and meaningful discussion aren’t going to get us there. And, being ignored, as I feel I’ve been for 5 months after suggesting that a collaborative committee be formed to discuss sustainable funding for the District’s HS GT program, certainly doesn’t get us there either. The only thing that does is turn couch potatoes, like myself, into GT and education advocates and “community critics”.

Let the criticism continue!

Kevin Carroll’s meeting with the HS GT Community was Horrendous

July 6, 2017 /

I laughed when a Board member recently told me that Kevin Carroll had told the interim Superintendent that a May meeting with the District’s HS GT community “went well”.

I was at that meeting. I don’t know whether Kevin Carroll is delusional, from another planet or wanted his boss to believe something happened that didn’t happen. But calling what transpired during that meeting as “went well” is far from how the GT parents and students would characterize that meeting.

Maybe if you want to define “went well” as having the opportunity to present a completely misleading and intentionally deceptive set of SBB numbers to the HS GT community, but from the first question onward, “went well” is not how I would describe that meeting.

Maybe Kevin doesn’t quite grasp the concept that there is a high probability that GT students have intelligent parents. Maybe Kevin doesn’t understand that these parents are not going to be fooled by some attempted slick presentation and they will call him out for attempting to intentionally deceive and mislead them with a set of SBB numbers that don’t match the reality of what actually happens at a school. He was called out for that attempt by a parent.

But, that’s not all.

Kevin was called out by a student for his continued attempts to mislead and deceive everyone he talks to about how the HS GT program is similar to “the other 15 GT programs in the District” with regard to services, educational opportunities and support when it isn’t. The student told Carroll that the elementary and middle school GT programs he attended were just advanced learning programs, and that the high school GT program was the first time he had ever experienced social-emotional support and the autonomous learner model.

Kevin even upset my meek and mild-mannered “on-the-spectrum” daughter, who also has ADHD, with his comment that money earmarked for the high school GT program might be better spent on students “who have real needs.” Really, Kevin? And you oversee the GT program? And Special Education? Do you understand who is in the GT program and what it does? Do you not realize that with their high probability of co-morbid developmental and mental health challenges, and with their different way of thinking and feeling, gifted students have “real needs” as legitimate as those of special education students? He should be fired for incompetence for that comment.

Kevin was told straight up by one parent that he wasn’t trusted, nor was the District. After his presentation, it was easy to see why.

Another parent asked why, if the program is such a success, the District would seek to pull money from it instead of investing more into it like a successful business would. No answer to that question.

Kevin was also called out for making this presentation without including the school’s School Accountability Committee, and doing it at a time when the school essentially didn’t have a principal to refute his numbers. That felt pretty sneaky. I guess that’s one way to ensure only one side of the story gets told.

The parents and students at that meeting weren’t fooled by Kevin and his misleading, manipulative and deceptive SBB numbers, and trust me, they let him know that.

For him to go back and tell his boss that the meeting “went well” is just another in a long line of statements by Kevin Carroll that just aren’t true. We don’t need or want Cabinet members like Kevin in our District!

To put it simply – this meeting couldn’t have been much worse! And the high school GT community deserves better.

The Continued Spreading of Alternative Facts Regarding Teacher Turnover

June 26, 2017 /

I’ve recently read several comments to Dr. Glass in response to his 3 Questions for Jeffco along with a blog posting on Support Jeffco Kids (SJK) that talk about teacher turnover and cite Colorado Department of Education (CDE) statistics to justify calls for increasing teacher compensation. Specifically, the Support Jeffco Kids post states:

“Teachers and principals are leaving Jeffco for other districts that offer better paying jobs. Teacher turnover in Jeffco increased from 10 percent to 15 percent between 2013-14 and 2014-15, according to Chalkbeat Colorado. Though it has slowed since the recall of WNW, our turnover rate is more than half of the other large Front Range/metro area districts.”

The fact is that the CDE statistics can NOT be used to support the premise that ‘Teachers and principals are leaving Jeffco for other districts that offer better paying jobs.” The ONLY thing the CDE statistics can be used to say is that some percentage of teachers have left Jeffco. Neither CDE nor Jeffco know WHY the teachers have left. I previously filed a CORA request with the Jeffco school district to determine if exit interviews were conducted of teachers leaving the school district and the response to that request was that surveys are not routinely conducted.

Therefore, without knowing the answer to this vital question, no one, including Support Jeffco Kids and any of a number of other people can make the claim that:

“Teachers and principals are leaving Jeffco for other districts that offer better paying jobs.”

The primary reason for this is that CDE’s teacher turnover rate includes teachers leaving for a wide variety of reasons such as:

  • Retirement
  • Moving with family due to a significant other’s job relocation
  • Moving out of the area to be closer to family
  • Birth of a child
  • Taking a position with another school district to be geographically closer to the teacher’s own residence
  • Taking another, non-teaching, position within the same school district
  • Leaving teaching completely either because teaching is not a perfect fit, going back to school or other opportunities
  • Leaving the school district due to discipline or performance issues (actually good for the district)
  • Leaving Jeffco for a higher paying school district (should we even count marginal or low performing teachers in this category? I think not.)

While leaving Jeffco for a higher paying school district is one component of the CDE’s Teacher Turnover rates, using it to support any premise related to teachers and principals leaving Jeffco for better paying jobs is completely unfounded.

In addition, even the Chalkbeat article quoted by Support Jeffco Kids does not support the SJK conclusion:

“Teacher attrition is often caused by conditions outside of districts’ control, said Robert Reichardt, a consultant with Augenblick, Palaich and Associates who has studied teacher workforce issues in Colorado. He said those factors include the average age of teachers (the youngest and oldest teachers are more likely to leave their jobs) and the state of the economy (harder economic times, such as the years following the Great Recession of 2008, mean less turnover because jobs are harder to find).”

I think it would be an interesting conversation to have if we knew the actual turnover rate of quality Jeffco teachers leaving for a higher paying teaching job elsewhere, but until either Jeffco or CDE collects that information, using the CDE statistics to support that conclusion is just an inaccurate Alternative Fact.

The second Alternative Fact in the Support Jeffco Kids posting is the statement regarding comparison of Turnover Rates:

“Though it has slowed since the recall of WNW, our turnover rate is more than half of the other large Front Range/metro area districts.”

While this statement is unclear, I will assume that it is intended to mean that the turnover rate is one and a half times the rate of other large Front Range/metro area districts.

Again, we don’t know which districts SJK is using for comparison, but in looking at the rates of the 4 large districts used for compensation comparison purposes in Jeffco, this statement is once again unsupported:

Yes, the Turnover Rate in Jeffco is higher than Boulder Valley and Cherry Creek, but not the two other large Districts.  Certainly not more than one and a half times the rate of the “other large Front Range/metro area districts” that Support Jeffco Kids wants you to believe. Once again, more Alternative Facts based on conjecture and not actual data.

If the data supported what Support Jeffco Kids and other people want you to believe that would be one thing, but their Alternative Facts are just not true.

Finally, using SJK’s logic, if WNW were completely responsible for the increased Turnover Rate in Jeffco wouldn’t the election of the ‘clean slate’ Board have immediately returned the rate to what it was in 2013-2014 – 10%? It didn’t return to that, sitting at 14.4% in 2016-2017. Therefore, either Turnover Rates are more complicated than SJK wants you to believe or teachers are not happy even with the ‘clean slate’. My take is that SJK gives too much credit to WNW for a complex statistic.

The bottom line is that Teacher Turnover rates should not be used to imply anything without additional, more detailed, information that explains the composition of the rates. Any conclusions drawn from the CDE data are pure conjecture and completely biased – Alternative Facts.

Does the School Board even care about improving education in Jeffco? It doesn’t seem so.

June 13, 2017 /

Recently there was a Question and Answer article in the Canyon Courier with school Board president Ron Mitchell.

I found Ron’s answers to the questions to be disappointing and disturbing. Not once did he mention improving academic performance or growth. They are certainly not in his list of accomplishments or even in his list of items that need work. Transparency is a nice goal, but shouldn’t education performance be first and foremost? And as for his desire to “examine early childhood education”, that realistically is not going to happen unless a boatload of money miraculously falls from the sky. This Board just doesn’t seem to care about improving education in the county. Even as their words say this is true, their actions speak even louder. The absence of any performance-based compensation incentive in Dr. Glass’s contract is a pretty strong indicator that improving education is not their first priority.

In addition, in a February 21st response to a letter I had previously sent to the Board, Amanda Stevens wrote:

“ As a Board of Education we have set priorities based upon three main objectives:

  • competitive compensation to keep and attract quality staff,
  • maintaining school funding levels through student based budgeting (SBB) while trying to preserve critical programs and services for students; and,
  • ensuring school facilities are warm, safe, and dry.”

There it is. Three Board objectives and not one of them is to improve academic performance or growth. These are quite similar to Ron’s comments with no mention of what should really matter – Students and Education.

Something is very, very wrong with the Jeffco school Board. It’s time for them to rethink their priorities and objectives and truly focus on students and improving education in Jefferson County.

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