Category: School Board (Page 7 of 9)

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

September 11, 2017 / ijsadmin

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.

Mere months after “budget crisis” and budget cuts, new Superintendent hires “Special Assistant”

August 25, 2017 / ijsadmin

What are we to think when only days into a new fiscal year and just days on the job, the new Superintendent commits the equivalent of a full-time teacher’s salary so that he can “supervise” a PhD Education Leadership resident?

Didn’t the District just have what the Board described as a “budget crisis”? Didn’t the District just absorb $10M+ in budget cuts? Didn’t the District just narrowly avoid closing 4 additional neighborhood schools and cuts to successful student-facing programs?

If the fiscal situation is so dire, where did the money for this “resident” miraculously appear?

I realize there is some “slush” in a $1B budget. But shouldn’t some of that “slush” have been found only a few short months earlier, before successful programs were recommended for reduction?

Why didn’t the District staff find that “extra” money then? Or is the new Superintendent such a financial wizard that he could identify it after only a few short days on the job? How did he find this money at the beginning of the fiscal year before under-spends could be identified?

I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know that the optics of this immediate “hire” are not good. This “hire” makes me wonder the following:

Why does the new, highly paid Superintendent need a “Special Assistant”?
Where is this money really coming from? The response to the CORA request I filed stated it is coming from the (already reduced by $54,000 due to budget reductions) Superintendent’s Admin budget, or other unspecified accounts at management discretion. This means it is coming from some still unknown budget line.

Why should we ever trust the District/Board when they say there is a “budget crisis” if they can come up with the salary for one teacher equivalent just days into a new fiscal year? It makes me wonder where else they are “hiding” money.
What value is this “Special Assistant” really going to provide to the District, above and beyond staff that is already on the payroll and familiar with the District?
Why did the new Superintendent agree to this?

I’m sorry, but when the District keeps saying that they’re no longer going to fund successful and life-changing student-facing programs such as the District’s HS GT program, yet can miraculously and instantaneously find money for the Superintendent’s “Special Assistant”, I don’t think you can trust any future “budget crisis” or proposed budget cuts!

Board Members court Wheat Ridge only when they want something

August 4, 2017 / ijsadmin

I recently saw where the three Board of Education members up for re-election were going to hold their kick-off rally in Wheat Ridge. My first reaction was “REALLY”? In Wheat Ridge?? What a slap in the face!

These same Board members have shown nothing but apathy for learners in the Wheat Ridge articulation area. They have shown absolutely ZERO leadership in developing a long-term sustainable funding solution for the District’s HS GT program at Wheat Ridge HS, causing uncertainty and anxiety among the students, parents and Wheat Ridge HS. They essentially approved a back door cut of $50k to WR and the HS GT program with the recently approved Alternative Pathways BFO. They essentially put Pennington and Stober Elementary Schools at the top of the list for closure. They pulled money from hard earned reserves for new schools, but let the entire Wheat Ridge articulation area languish and deteriorate with one of the worst Facility Condition Indexes in the entire district.

And they want to launch their re-election campaign in Wheat Ridge? I don’t know about anyone else, but that certainly feels like they’re saying to Wheat Ridge, “We only care about you when you can do something for us.”

For transparency, the Board’s and District’s actions speak louder than words

July 24, 2017 / ijsadmin

The Board can deny, disagree with or ignore the lack of transparency with the recent Alternative Pathways BFO, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t a lack of transparency.

On June 9^th I wrote a letter to the Board regarding transparency issues with the changed Alternative Pathways Budgeting for Outcomes (BFO). Specifically, the wording of the BFO budget document was revised from the original posted in the May 4^th Board Docs. Then, instead of posting the new document in the June 1^st Board Docs just like every other financial document that was going to be discussed and voted on at that meeting, the changed document was reposted to the May 4^th Board Docs. This essentially “hid” the changes from the public who may have wanted to comment on the changes during the Board’s public comment. To compound the transparency issues, the document retained the original date and signature of April 14^th which was clearly false as the changes were made sometime after May 4^th.

When I brought these transparency issues to the attention of the Board in my June 9^th letter, the response I received was:

“In regard to your note of June 9, I would disagree with your assertions that there is an attempt to hide information from the community.”

Really? Is that the best response the Board could come up with to a blatant transparency issue? They couldn’t even counter the facts. Guess what – “Perception = Reality” and in this case my perception is that this was a blatant attempt to hide information as I had previously written to the Board and publicly commented on this BFO at the May Board meeting.

Actually, my assertion was that “hiding these changes in the May 4^th Board Docs was deceptive in nature and violated all Board stated intentions of transparency.”

Disputing “attempt to hide information” does NOT dispute my assertion of a lack of transparency, which this clearly was.

In addition, the April 14^th, 2017 signed date on the document is false. Where’s the transparency there?

I even wonder whether this is a legal document since the date does not reflect the actual date of the changes.

The Board says that they are all for transparency, but by ignoring and refusing to take corrective action on the non-transparent changes to this BFO, their actions certainly speak louder than their words.

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

July 7, 2017 / ijsadmin

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

a person who judges, evaluates, or criticizes.
a person who judges, evaluates, or analyzes literary or artistic works,dramatic or musical performances, or the like, especially for anewspaper or magazine.
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!

Be careful, Jeffco Voters and Taxpayers!

June 27, 2017 / ijsadmin

Susan Harmon and Brad Rupert don’t think that $20 million in one-time and ongoing teacher raises for 2016-1017 and $19.5M in increases for 2017-2018 are enough!

Recent articles in the Canyon Courier regarding Susan Harmon’s run for re-election (June 14, 2017) and Brad Rupert’s run for re-election (June 21, 2017) give us the following quotes:

Brad Rupert – “…I think we’ve made progress – although perhaps not as much as I’d like – in being competitive with regard to our teachers and their compensation packages…”

Susan Harmon – “Additionally, the school district still isn’t competitive in the market for teachers, so I want to work on that.”

These seem like code words to me of another budget ‘crisis’ and an attempt to raise taxes, the Board’s continued neglect of facilities maintenance issues that only continue to get worse, or closing more neighborhood schools.

I realize that teacher compensation is a touchy subject, but when I graphically compare 2016-2017 teacher salaries to cherry-picked neighboring districts I don’t see the discrepancies that people talk about.

BA Salary Comparison 2016-2017

MA Salary Comparison 2016-2017

Yes, there are cherry-picked points where Jeffco salaries may be less than the other large districts, but across the spectrum, Jeffco salaries seem to me to be pretty competitive. We also have to keep in mind that these graphs only compare salaries in select adjacent districts (well, Cherry Creek is not exactly adjacent).

I’m happy to support compensation increases, and even a tax hike, if it can be proven to me that there truly is a compensation gap. However, my graphs don’t show that across the board and combined with the fact that the District doesn’t collect any exit survey information to prove their theory that teachers are leaving for more lucrative teaching positions I’m just not drinking the Kool-Aid. As they say in Missouri – ‘Show me!’

It will be interesting to see how these graphs change for 2017-2018 so I’ll update them when that data becomes available.

In the meantime, keep an eye on Brad and Susan and the rest of their compatriots!

The Continued Spreading of Alternative Facts Regarding Teacher Turnover

June 26, 2017 / ijsadmin

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.

Transparency in Jeffco? Only if repeating the word counts.

June 14, 2017 / ijsadmin

Recently, at the June 1^st Board meeting, the District staff egregiously concealed changes to an Alternative Pathways Budgeting For Outcomes (BFO) recommendation in order to obfuscate the impact to Wheat Ridge High School and the District’s HS GT program.

It is true that changes to the dates were needed to correct poor staff work as these dates were initially written as “2019-2018” and generated confusion even among Board members.

However, the changes went far, far beyond just correcting the dates as Terry Elliott wanted the Board to believe. Terry Elliott described that these changes were made to make the BFO clearer. But, what these changes actually did was hide the fact Wheat Ridge HS would, in effect, either lose $50,000 in relation to other district high schools for Alternative Pathways programs or lose $50,000 in funding to the District’s HS GT program. I have included the original text and the now ‘clearer’ text of the BFO below so you can see for yourself.

More disturbing is the fact that the changes to this BFO were NOT placed in the June 1^st Board Docs, as were all other changed Budget documents, but the changed BFO was hidden in the May Board Docs. This prevented anyone knowing about these changes prior to the Board meeting and prevented anyone from signing up to comment on the changes at the meeting. The only way these changes were even known is that the CFO, Kathleen Askelson, happened to mention that the changed BFO was placed in the May Board Docs section.

Finally, in any truly transparent organization, changes to documents would be re-signed with the date of the changes to accurately and transparently reflect those changes. This again didn’t happen with this BFO as the document was changed but not re-signed.

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.

In this case, if it looks like the District staff is trying to hide something and they blatantly attempt to hide it, then the District staff truly is hiding something – the real impact to Wheat Ridge HS.

I have sent a letter to the Board requesting that they admonish the District Staff for this blatant act of concealment in addition to issuing a public apology for the staff’s complete and utter disregard for the Board’s stated goal of complete transparency.

We’ll see what response that gets.

Original BFO Explanation

Currently 4 high schools receive $50,000 for funding IB programs as an alternative pathway in their school and another high school (Wheat Ridge HS) receives $150,000 for GT center program pathway. Other schools are offering alternative pathways or are looking to expand their offerings, yet lack sufficient funding to support such initiatives. By increasing the SBB Alternative Education Pathway Factor a we can increase significantly resources for all schools and create greater equity for students throughout the district. IB high schools would receive the increased Alternative Pathway factor in lieu of the IB factor and WRHS would see a transfer of $50,000 of their GT center funding to their alternative pathway funding for the 2019-18 school year.

Changed BFO Explanation

Currently 4 high schools receive $50,000 for funding IB programs as an alternative pathway in their school and another high school (Wheat Ridge HS) receives $150,000 for GT center program pathway. Other schools are offering alternative pathways or are looking to expand their offerings, yet lack sufficient funding to support such initiatives. By increasing the SBB Alternative Education Pathway Factor a we can increase significantly resources for all schools and create greater equity for students throughout the district. Designated boundary/neighborhood high schools not currently receiving an IB ($50,000) or GT ($150,000) factor will be allocated an additional $50,000 for the 2017-2018 school year. Beginning in 2018 2019 there will no longer be an IB factor and all designated boundary/neighborhood high schools will receive $115,000 in Alternative Pathway dollars.

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

June 13, 2017 / ijsadmin

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 21^st 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.

Is the Board capable of thinking out of the Box? Or, Why is the Board not capable of any real discussion?

June 6, 2017 / ijsadmin

Over the course of the past 6 months, in response to District staff financial recommendations, I have sent what I think were well researched and well thought out alternatives to several of those recommendations to the Board. There has never been a discussion on any of my alternatives. I am only left to wonder ‘Why?’

The first was in response to the Cabinet’s budget reduction recommendation to cut funding to the District’s HS GT program at Wheat Ridge. In this case I recommended that the Board look at the following alternatives and proceeded to outline why those were worthy of a discussion:

Here are 4 options I suggest you consider to save the HS GT program:

Cut one additional Achievement Director than has already been recommended. This program with 14 current Directors can easily support a reduction to 11 or even 10.
Use some of the $17.5M in Materials and Supplies Contingency that is hidden in the budget. In 2016-2017 this is actually a $7.5M increase from 2015-2016.
Reduce the amount of savings you’re looking for. Only one year after negotiating a new contract with the teacher’s union, it is extremely hard for most people to comprehend the need for another $25M in compensation increases. Spending a little less would still be an improvement for teachers.
Determine if some of the $24M in 2015-2016 budget surplus is sustainable and use some of the sustainable surplus to fund high school GT.

The second was in response to the Cabinet’s equal allocation of additional Alternative Pathways funding instead of equitable funding made on May 4^th. In this case I recommended that the Board look at the following alternatives:

How about considering these ideas:

Create competition. Have schools submit Alternative Pathways program proposals. From this competition allocate additional funding for the best of these.
Allocate $20,000 to all 17 schools and keep the IB and GT Center funding in place.
Keep the IB and GT Center funding and allocate $50k in additional Alternative Pathways funding to just the 12 schools which have total matriculation rates below 72%, FRL rates above 14% and 4 year matriculation rates below 55%.

Yet, not one of these reasonable alternatives was even discussed. Surely, if the Board members were really doing their jobs at least one member would have found one of these alternatives interesting enough to warrant a discussion.

But there never was a discussion. It’s baffling to me.

In addition, I’ve heard other community members present reasonable alternatives at Board meetings, but again never any semblance of a discussion on community proposed alternatives.

When you are in a fiscally constrained environment shouldn’t you listen to and evaluate every single idea?

Having worked in resource constrained startups, that is certainly the characteristic that I saw that led to survival.

Yet, there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of that type of thinking or behavior to me with the current Board.

Actually, all I’ve seen is an arrogant, we know best, and uncreative herd mentality.