Category: Superintendent (Page 4 of 6)

Jason Glass’s Lack of Leadership

March 24, 2019 / ijsadmin

Everyone knew it was coming. There’s no excuse for not knowing the answers to Board members’ questions. Yet, Glass and District staff miserably failed to plan for the recommendation to change school start times.

Changing high school start times has been a topic in Jeffco for a long time now. My daughter sent a letter to the Board about this topic in the spring prior to Glass getting hired, so the discussion is not new. Many people talk about it and there are valid studies that show that it immediately improves the academic performance and health of teenagers. Multiple Colorado Districts have already shifted, and even more are considering it.

Jeffco, under Glass, even started talking about it in February 2018. A Committee was formed in July 2018 to develop recommendations by January 2019, with one of their stated objectives being: “The group as a whole will also consider how schedule changes could affect transportation, sports and other after school activities, student employment, and district budget”.

Yet, it seems that when the committee made their recommendations in February, Glass, and the committee, didn’t have answers to some Board members’ legitimate concerns, particularly as to what the actual costs, logistics and implementation would be. Also, Glass stated that “numerous” principals had concerns about the disruptive effects of the proposed time changes.

Are you kidding me?

This isn’t some “out-of-the-blue” unexpected recommendation. EVERYONE should have been preparing for this recommendation as the evidence is so strong for it. EVERYONE on the District staff, including Glass, should have been preparing for an implementation. Glass should have known, from his staff, EXACTLY what this would cost and should have already been budgeting for it in the 2019-20 budget. Yet, it seems, in a clear absence of leadership, Glass didn’t anticipate these legitimate questions and consequently didn’t direct his staff to perform the necessary planning that would have ensured a successful implementation in 2019-20. This is particularly disconcerting since other Districts have been able to make these changes in a similar amount of time. Real leaders, especially those who claim to have a “Vision”, anticipate and plan for changes. Glass didn’t! And the concerns of Principals? Don’t these Principals understand the benefits of these changes? Wasn’t Glass and his band of merry Community Superintendents talking to Principals about what could potentially happen to start times and start addressing those concerns in the plans they should have been making? Obviously not. Shouldn’t Glass, as the District leader, have just told the Principals that the evidence out weighs their concerns and that they have an obligation, a duty really, to do whatever was necessary to implement the changes? Again, obviously not!

And to add insult to injury, while Glass could find unbudgeted money in the 2018-19 budget to hire a second a SECOND Communications Director, a Bond Construction Communications Specialist and $400,000 for renovation of the 3^rd floor of the Admin building he COULDN’T find enough money ($70,000 most likely spread out over 2 budget years) for a consultant to begin this year to help the inept District staff work through some of the issues raised by the Board!

All of this adds up to a clear and utter lack of leadership on the part of Glass on something that has a well documented direct and immediate impact on education performance, health and safety, which is now, most likely, years down the road.

What a joke! Glass’s actions, when it really counts, clearly demonstrate what type of leader he really is – weak and ineffective!

Why won’t Jason Glass show 5B Charter calculations?

March 16, 2019 / ijsadmin

As the discussion surrounding the allocation of 5B monies to Charters has continued over the past few weeks, it has been easy to see why there has been confusion. First, EVERY piece of literature put out by the District stated that Charters would receive 10%, or $56M from the bond proceeds. Not one piece that I saw contained an asterik clarifying that the share was dependent upon Full Time Enrollment (FTE) such as “* FTE dependent”. Personally, it makes sense to proportionally distribute the funding based on FTE, but it certainly appears that there are people who strongly believe that they were told that Charters would get a flat 10%, and I can see their point. I wasn’t in those meetings, but the anecdotal evidence is that there was certainly a high degree of confusion in this regards, and not just from EVERY piece of written literature and media.

Because of what I consider to be this justified confusion, I would have thought I would have seen a somewhat different tone in the Facebook responses surrounding this topic. I would have expected to have seen some potentially empathetic or conciliatory responses such as: “Now that you bring this up, we see how there might have been some confusion.” or “Maybe we should have included something to clarify this in our literature.” or “We’re sorry we created this confusion, we’ll learn from this and strive to do better the next time.” or even “At the (add a date here) meeting of the Charter school consortium, we very clearly discussed that Charters would be receiving a prorated share of the Bond proceeds.” Unfortunately, I didn’t see those responses in the Facebook discussion on this topic. At https://www.facebook.com/groups/1236337263132884/permalink/1758767880889817/ you can go back and see if you agree or disagree with my opinion on this.

By the time the Board meeting was held this past Thursday questions regarding Bond proceed allocation appeared to shift to understanding how the FTE numbers were arrived at and the calculation of the prorated share. Those questions seem legitimate to me since using CDE numbers at https://www.cde.state.co.us/cdereval/pupilcurrent it appears that Charter students make up 10.7% of the District’s student counts. These numbers appear to match up with the student count numbers contained on page 20 of the District’s Office Statement to Bond investors that can be seen in this letter to the Board https://www.boarddocs.com/co/jeffco/Board.nsf/files/B9T4N972FC2D/$file/c19119O.pdf, which I would think would be the official, audited numbers. Those numbers show 9,052 Charter school students out of a total of 84,631 total students in the District, or 10.7% by my calculations. I will state that the District may do some additional calculations on these numbers to convert to FTE since some students only attend ½ time, but I think that is what, in the interest of full transparency, people want to see – how exactly the Charter proration was calculated. And, I think it should be simple enough to provide this detail.

Yet, at Thursday’s Board meeting, when the District had an opportunity to put all of these questions to rest, they didn’t.

At the 5:17 point of the Board meeting Livestream Kathleen went into a discussion of the history of past Bond proceed sharing with Charters and then went on to discuss that there are a variety of ways to count students, that the audited student numbers are what the District uses and that Golden View’s numbers are subtracted. Yet, she failed in the most important part of any explanation – showing the actual numbers and formula that the District uses and the source of those numbers. That means that questions remain.

We can only wonder why there is such an unwillingness to show the numbers and calculations.

Is Jason Glass and the District trying to hide something? It seems that it would just be so simple to show the numbers, explain them and let everyone go away satisfied. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened and the questions remain and people are left to wonder why.

To me, it seems that this entire issue has been extremely poorly handled by Glass and the District staff.

Therefore, in the interest of full transparency, let’s see the full accounting of the formula for and source of the student count numbers used to calculate the Charters’ share of Bond proceeds!

What was the rush with Glass’s 5 year extension?

March 10, 2019 / ijsadmin

Why was Mitchell so adamant that the contract be approved at the March meeting?

Even though District Counsel Craig Hess noted that voting on Glass’s contract extension violated the spirit of District policy (at 2:39 of Board Livestream) and 2 Board members noted that doing so could be perceived as lack of transparency, Mitchell was determined to vote on the extension at the meeting.

Mitchell even went so far as to claim that the 2 people who spoke at public comment on the fact that the contract wasn’t even available for review until sometime after early morning Thursday were proof that the public had the opportunity to comment on the extension. (Hey Ron – their comments were aimed at the fact that needed information wasn’t available!)

Multiple Board Members stated that their vote would be the same that month as it would be the following month if they waited.

Yet, Ron Mitchell pushed through a vote, and every Board member dutifully followed along and voted for it.

Just one more blow to transparency in Jeffco!

But why such the rush, there was still well over a year remaining? And, why wasn’t the contract posted to the Board agenda site until the day of the vote? There supposedly weren’t any material changes in it from the original contract, so why couldn’t it have been posted earlier? Certainly, Glass had a copy prior to that time so that he could have it reviewed by his lawyer.

What was Mitchell afraid of? Was he afraid of the public comment he might get because there aren’t any performance based provisions in the contract? Did Jason Glass get another offer and threatened to leave the District if he didn’t get a contract extension that month? Was Mitchell worried about potential comments that might come out regarding some of the deception perpetrated by Glass regarding getting people to vote for 5B?

I guess we’ll never know.

However, we can infer from the actions of Mitchell that he was worried about something. And, he was willing to throw transparency and the spirit of the Board’s own policies to the wind to get the contract extension passed that night.

Shame, shame, shame on Mitchell and the Board!

Board’s continued 5B Deferred Maintenance Deception

March 5, 2019 / ijsadmin

I’ve previously written about Jason Glass’s & Ali Lasell’s public deception regarding their claims of the District’s $1.3B in “Deferred Maintenance” and sent a letter to the Board regarding the same.

Not only do the District’s numbers not add up, but the use of the very specific term “Deferred Maintenance” is just wrong and inaccurate. “Deferred Maintenance” has a very specific meaning in the financial, accounting and business world. The Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board defines “Deferred Maintenance” as maintenance and repairs that were not performed when they should have been or were scheduled to be and which are put off or delayed for a future period.

What Jason Glass and Ali talk about when they talk about “Deferred Maintenance” is not “Deferred Maintenance” at all!

First, Jason Glass, as the CEO of a $1B organization should know better and SHOULD know what that term means. Second, the use of the key word “Deferred” means maintenance that was scheduled previously, but has not yet been performed, as in delayed. We’re talking about the past tense of a word here for the people in the school District who may not have been paying attention when they went to grade school. In this case, the District attempts to claim that $371M in projected maintenance, over the next 6 years, is currently “Deferred”.

The District’s response to my original letter on this topic was comical, to say the least.

The District continues to claim there was $1.3B in “Deferred Maintenance”, but even their numbers just don’t add up.

Here’s an extract from their response:

The $1.3 billion was arrived at in the following manner. The capital program is planned over two phases of five to six years per phase. As of February 2018, the value of deficiencies as defined in the annual Summary of Findings is $588 million. The proposed 2018 bond, valued at $567 million, will address about $250 million in deferred maintenance priorities 1-3; an additional $125 million towards educational adequacy, the balance in replacement facilities, growth accommodation through additions and new buildings, safety and security, and technology.

The investment in current deficiencies will be $375 million or 64% of the need. Life cycle renewal is valued at $371.3 million in non-inflation adjusted dollars. This amount continues to grow each year as systems and components reach the end of their life cycle requiring major investment or replacement. In 2023, when the 2018 bond should be near completion, these items will have moved into the deferred maintenance categories. The balance of deferred maintenance items not addressed by the proposed 2018 bond, in non-inflation adjusted dollars, will be $213 million in addition to the $371.3 million of life cycle work that have become deferred maintenance leaving $584.3 million in unaddressed deferred maintenance.

Summarizing, the 2018 proposal is valued at $567 million, a 2024 bond proposal valued in 2018 dollars would be $584 million or nearly $1.2 billion in 2018 dollars. Applying even a modest inflation of 3% over six years, the cost exceeds the $1.3 billion value.

Here are the summarized key points in that response:

As of February 2018, the value of facilities deficiencies is $588M (certainly not $1.3B).
The Bond will address about $375M, or 64%, of that need.
The balance of deferred maintenance items, not addressed by the Bond, will be $213M ($588M – $375M).
The balance of the bond ($567M – $375M or $192M) will go toward “replacement facilities, growth accommodation through additions and new buildings, safety and security, and technology” and Charters.
Projected Life Cycle renewal is valued at $371.3M, which in 2023 will have moved into deferred maintenance categories

For the time being, let’s ignore the FACT that you can’t call maintenance “Deferred” now, if you’re talking about something that won’t even be needed for 4, 5 or even 6 years in the future. Therefore, let’s just add up the numbers they gave me:

$375M in bond funds used for maintenance and educational adequacy needs

$213M in current maintenance needs not addressed by the bond

$371M in upcoming life cycle needs over the next 6 years

It’s time to bring out the calculator, because the total from those three numbers is $959M, NOT $1.3B.

The District’s “Subject Matter Expert” attempted to say that a liberal use of inflation COULD bring that total up to $1.3B in 6 years, but the facts are the following:

You can’t compound that total cost figure over the course of 6 years because even the District isn’t claiming that the total amount is currently deferred.
The “Subject Matter Expert” also incorrectly, and deceptively, claimed that in order to get to $1.3B, the entire $567M bond was deferred maintenance, which we know isn’t true: “Summarizing, the 2018 proposal is valued at $567 million, a 2024 bond proposal valued in 2018 dollars would be $584 million or nearly $1.2 billion in 2018 dollars. Applying even a modest inflation of 3% over six years, the cost exceeds the $1.3 billion value.”
Even still, if you are going to claim that Deferred Maintenance is going to accrue over the next 6 years, shouldn’t you also reduce that by the amount the District plans in Capital Transfers during that period? To present a balanced picture, you should! Hasn’t the District been spending approximately $17M per year in facilities maintenance? And what about claims in the Bond package that amount would actually increase to $138M over the course of the next 6 years — wouldn’t that reduce the $959M by $138M to $821M? It certainly would, and the fact that this offset was left out of the District’s analysis only serves to further highlight either the incompetence or degree to which you, and the District staff, will go in order to misrepresent finances and mislead taxpayers.

To state it plainly, the District does NOT have $1.3B in “Deferred Maintenance” needs, since $371M in the costs portrayed are merely currently PROJECTED needs and haven’t been deferred. And, $192M of the claimed “Deferred Maintenance” is not “Maintenance” at all, including $56M that is designated for Charter Schools.

Therefore, Jason Glass’s, Ali’s, and other District employees’ use of the term “Deferred Maintenance”, in an attempt to portray a greater need than there may actually be within the District is inaccurate, misleading and just plain wrong and highlights the depths they will go in order to intentionally deceive taxpayers.

Why is $15M in 5B Bond Expenditures not documented?

October 16, 2018 / ijsadmin

The District has very carefully shown that $705M will be funded for capital improvements, and in very broad categories, shown that $705M will be expended on page 2 of the Flip Book.

The District has also very carefully shown the costs of the new and replacement buildings and the improvements at each school.

However, when looking at the details, $15M in expenditures is missing.

Approximately $415M in detailed school projects (as outlined in the Flip Book), $66M in new construction, $64.5 in replacement schools, $56M to Charters and $86M in Contingency gives a total of approximately $690M.

Where’s the other $15M?? That’s over 2% of the total program and it is not a rounding error.

One could say that it was an innocent mistake. Or, one could also say that $15M in expenditures and projects was purposely left out of the Flip Book to prevent questions being raised about those projects.

In 2016, numerous questions were raised regarding the use of funding for renovating stadiums and transportation centers as significant funding was allocated to projects in these facilities. Obviously, those needs still exist, but they don’t appear in any discussions or literature put out by the District or Glass this year.

Does the District have plans to use the “missing” $15M for projects at other locations and subsequently conveniently “forgotten” to mention those projects or put them in the Flip Book to avoid having to answer questions about them?

Is that being honest with the taxpayers? Is that being transparent?

If this is indeed true, it is certainly not being transparent.

I would even go as far as classifying it as intentional deception on the part of Glass and the District and I don’t think deception should be rewarded.

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

June 4, 2018 / ijsadmin

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

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

Amanda’s response was:

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

And, what exactly does that mean, Amanda?

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

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

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

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

Guess what – the law applies to Jason Glass too!

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

June 4, 2018 / ijsadmin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

An Extraordinary Lack of Leadership from Jason Glass

April 21, 2018 / ijsadmin

Can anyone give me an example of any organization that would ALLOW its employees to force it to shut down its core functions merely because its employees WANTED to take a day off?

Don’t almost all organizations require supervisor approval if an employee requests a day off?

Don’t (competent) supervisors subsequently ensure that the organization has adequate staffing during the employee’s requested off time prior to granting approval?

What does that say about Jeffco schools then when District and School Leadership essentially ALLOWED sufficient numbers of teachers and staff to take “personal” days on April 26^th “forcing” Jason Glass to shut down the District for “safety” reasons?

In my mind, it means 3 things:

That Jason Glass is an extraordinarily weak leader. He clearly demonstrated that he doesn’t have the will or courage to stand up for students and perform his PRIMARY job responsibility.
It clearly demonstrates that students are NOT the Number 1 priority of Jason Glass or the District. The District has one job, and that is to provide a quality education to the District’s students. How does that happen when teachers, and students, are not in class? And what about the 31% of the District’s Free and Reduced Lunch students? Where are they getting their meals that day? It certainly seems that from the actions of teachers taking a “personal” day and Glass shutting down the District, that students are NOT the Number 1 priority.
Jason Glass and teachers don’t care about working parents. What are working parents supposed to do if their kids aren’t in school? Jason Glass and the teachers essentially told these parents that they want them to take their own day off work, take their own “personal” day, or a day without pay so that teachers could “protest”. Selfish, selfish, selfish!

Who is running the school District? Certainly not Jason Glass. And after not standing up for the students and parents, and by extension the taxpayers who pay his salary to ensure kids get an education, JCEA knows that they run the District and can do whatever they want in the future.

What happened here demonstrates an extraordinary lack of leadership. It sets an extremely bad precedent. What will JCEA do next if they now know there are no repercussions for coordinated job related actions? While Jason Glass might agree with some of the funding related issues, it is his JOB to look out for the students, and their education, FIRST.

Finally, why haven’t we heard from the School Board? Actually, that’s not a hard question to answer as we already know the Board is owned by the union.

It is just shocking that there is so much lack of leadership, particularly from Jason Glass. This would just NOT happen in any other organization that is truly serious about its core mission.

Innovation Fund – Another poorly thought out idea by Glass

January 14, 2018 / ijsadmin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

District Staff Hides Fact MAP data shows decrease in Growth Rates

January 13, 2018 / ijsadmin

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

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

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

That’s not a trend we should be seeing!

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

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