Category: School Board (Page 7 of 8)

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.

Educrats rule Jeffco. Board drinks the Kool-Aid and fails to ask a single meaningful question.

June 5, 2017 / ijsadmin

At the June 1^st Board meeting multiple District Educrats (Urban Dictionary defines Educrat – “It describes a special kind of person in the education: pinheads who are so process-oriented that they are more excited in the process of learning than the myriad wonders that can be learned.”) presented their efforts at ‘Continuous Improvement’ to the Board. They based their Continuous Improvement efforts on the ‘Methodology of Improvement Science’ and the ‘Six Core Principles of Improvement’:

Make the work problem-specific and user-centered
Variation in performance is the core problem to address.
See the system that produces the current outcomes.
We cannot improve at scale what we cannot measure.
Anchor practice improvement in disciplined inquiry.
Accelerate improvements through networked communities.

If you’re ready for a nap you can view this from 1:51 – 2:41 of the June 1^st livestream https://livestream.com/accounts/10429076/events/3542310/videos/157394871

In my opinion, this 50 minute presentation and question session was the embodiment of Eduspeak. My eyes glazed over and I asked myself ‘Are these people more concerned about the process or education?’ I may be too simple of a person, but when people spend more time talking about the process than what they’ve accomplished it worries me. The first thought that came to my mind is that these people were merely attempting to justify their jobs.

On the other hand, I also recognize that the programs that were discussed could actually have real value to education in the district.

However, we’ll never know that real value as the presenters never addressed, nor did the Board ask the key questions which are necessary to assess that value. Those questions include:

What were the total required resources for this program? What are the real and projected costs?
Is this program repeatable at scale?
Is this program sustainable as people move on and change positions?

Without knowing the answers to these questions the District and the Board can’t assess the real value. They cannot compare the cost and value of different programs and the District will just continue to spend valuable resources on programs that may or may not be worth those resources.

It’s time for the District Staff and Board to ask the right questions so that they can spend our valuable tax dollars in an efficient and effective manner that positively impacts education in the District.

Another blow to Transparency in Dr. Glass’ Superintendent’s Contract?

May 31, 2017 / ijsadmin

In what is yet another blow to transparency within the school district Dr. Glass’ contract contains a sentence not included in previous contracts with regard to his yearly evaluation:

The Superintendent’s evaluation shall be kept confidential to the extent permitted by Colorado law.

Yet, Colorado Revised Statutes Title 22 Education § 22-9-109 clearly states:

(a) The evaluation report of the chief executive officer of any school district, as it relates to the performance of the chief executive officer in fulfilling the adopted school district objectives, fiscal management of the district, district planning responsibilities, and supervision and evaluation of district personnel, must be open for inspection by any person at reasonable times;

Since state law is very clear on this subject, why was this sentence even included in the contract?

Again, what are the Board and Dr. Glass attempting to hide?

Another poorly thought out recommendation by the School District’s staff

May 31, 2017 / ijsadmin

Recently the Superintendent’s Cabinet recommended allocating an additional $600,000, or $50,000 for 12 High Schools, in additional alternative Pathways funding. This will supplement the $65,000 each of 17 High Schools already receives for a total of $115,000 per school.

On the surface, this sounds fair.

It’s not.

Once again, this is an uncreative and poorly thought out recommendation by the Superintendent’s Cabinet. Here’s why:

There is no accountability for the already allocated $65,000. Some schools have instituted robust alternative pathways programs and use the money for its intended purpose, but others not so much. If there are schools that aren’t putting the current $65k to good use for alternative pathways why are they being rewarded with additional money?
High Schools are not the same and have different needs. Does Conifer (with less than 800 students, a 75% total matriculation rate and 14% Free and Reduced Lunch rate) have the same alternative pathways needs as Alameda (with 1300 students, 41% matriculation rate and 84% Free and Reduced Lunch) or even Lakewood (with 2100 students) or Columbine (with 1600 students)? The needs of these schools are different and in this case the proposed allocation of additional Alternative Pathways funds is Equal, but it is NOT Equitable!
The effective reduction in Alternative Pathways funding at the IB and GT Center schools in relation to the other 12 district High Schools does not really make sense. These 5 schools have Alternative Pathways programs that are working. In the case of Wheat Ridge, in addition to the GT Center, they are already spending over $90,000 on several extremely effective Alternative Pathways programs. With an overall matriculation rate of under 62% and a Free and Reduced Lunch population of over 46%, they can certainly use some additional funding. Yet, even with a proven track record, this BFO effectively reduces their Alternative Pathways funding by $50k in relation to schools such as Conifer and Evergreen which have high matriculation rates and low FRL populations. The same can be said with regard to the IB schools. They have excellent IB programs. Does this mean that just because they have a successful program, they couldn’t effectively use additional funding for other students?

I agree that additional Alternative Pathways funding can really make a difference and that it is a good use of funds. However, why not enact a process that ensures the money is really being used for its intended purpose. Make schools report back how that money is being spent and evaluate whether it is being spent for Alternative Pathways that make a difference as intended. Compare the value of those programs among the schools and reward schools that have effective, life-changing programs with more money. In effect, make schools earn the money. Don’t just give it away with no accountability whatsoever.

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%(see spreadsheet).

The Budgeting for Outcomes document states that the goal of this allocation is:

“To increase and bring equity to the SBB Alternative Pathway factor for all district managed neighborhood schools.”

Unfortunately, the uncreative allocation of this funding merely brings equality, NOT equity as is stated in the BFO Explanation. The goal of the District staff should be to Improve Jeffco Schools by effectively and efficiently using taxpayer money, not just give it away in an unaccountable and potentially inefficient manner.

Let’s allocate funds to where they will do the most good and make schools accountable for their use. Reward schools that are innovative and entrepreneurial and are really working for their students. Don’t reward schools that aren’t using these funds for their stated purpose.

Approving this BFO as written is inequitable and sends the wrong message.