I attended the board meeting this past week, and was very pleased to find it much more orderly and well behaved. Only a few things of interest happened:
Operations Committee Report
Bill Adams gave a report from his Operations committee. He spoke about a potential need to build more classrooms to support the new high school schedule, given that there was a chance that more space would be needed for particular kinds of classrooms. They intend to poll the teachers and students during the first few weeks of class to see what the interest is in future classes to allow them to gauge the kinds of classrooms needed.
The interesting part came in when they were discussing how they might pay for these new rooms. In most cases, capital improvements such as these would be paid for out of a bond issue. Bill felt that the need to have these new rooms might be more immediate than what could be paid for in this manner. It was mentioned that Rockwood could fund this construction out of its reserve, and then use a bond issue to replenish that reserve.
My concern about this is that funding the project this way would seem to be like a family dipping into its long-term savings to pay for something that it couldn't otherwise afford. While this is possible to do, it makes the financial situation of that family seem more shaky than it might otherwise appear. To Rockwood, its financial solvency is what allows it to get good interest rates on the bonds used to fund projects. Anything that makes us look less financially sound could drive up the price of borrowing money, which would increase the costs of these projects.
Additionally, it seems that the board is betting on the passage of the bond issue to pay back this money. What if the bond fails to pass? Then we are left with classrooms, which we needed, and a potentially less stable financial situation.
Like a family, it would seem wiser for the district to hold these funds for emergencies.
A Single Patron Comment
After the first discussion, the board retired to a closed session to discuss unnamed matters. They returned after an hour or so, and began by hearing patron comments. There was only one. A district parent spoke about his great respect for the board and its duties and actions, and went on to notice and describe the difficulties that the board and Dr. Larson have been having with their relationship these past few months. Then he got to his point:
Paraphrasing the statement:
Dr. Larson is due to leave in just under 2 years, as his contract expires. Dr. Peckron has announced her retirement at the end of this year. Dr. Scatizzi left a while ago, and his position was never refilled. Wouldn't it make sense if the board brought in a mediator to negotiate a buyout of Dr. Larson now, send him on his way in early fall, and hire a replacement immediately? That would allow someone to already be in place when Dr. Peckron leaves, giving a better transition of power from one administration to the next.
This statement struck me as being pretty peculiar on its surface, so I thought about it a bit.
First of all, the logic here seems to be very flawed. If Dr. Peckron is leaving and Dr. Scatizzi's position is unfilled, why would you want to create another vacancy now? Wouldn't it make more sense to use the experience and contacts of Dr. Larson to fill Dr. Peckron's position and give that person a solid year on the job to act as an aid to the new, incoming superintendent? Given that there are few, if any, qualified candidates to hire at this time of the year, exactly where are the potential new superintendent candidates going to come from "in the early fall"? To get a good candidate will require waiting until after the first of the year, when the administrators begin searching for new positions.
Secondly, getting back to my first point about fiscal responsibility, it is going to cost money to remove Dr. Larson. The board is going to have to authorize an outlay to him well into the 6 figures. Is this really the best use of this money? I'm reasonably certain that buying him out will have no net effect on the quality of life for teachers and students in our classrooms, whereas spending this money to help buy new books or teaching materials, or improving the lives of our teachers would help academic life.
(Look for a letter from me on this subject in West News Magazine in its next edition.)
Now, a plan that would seem to make sense, and wouldn't cost the district the extra buyout funds, would seem to be to start a replacement search for Dr. Peckron's position after the first of the year. Since Dr. Peckron is the ranking expert on her position, she should play an active role in this, along with Dr. Larson and a committee of other interested parties. This would allow the district to start her replacement on the job as quickly as realistically possible, and let the new hire begin to gain on the job experience here, which would be helpful to the new superintendent a year after that. Once that position was refilled, then the following winter another job search could begin to find the best replacement for Dr. Larson.
This plan has the advantage of truly offering a sensible transition plan, instead of the plan raised at the board meeting.
One Very Positive Note
The Board invited a presentation from a group of educators who had been working with young students who were operating at or just below grade level. The leader of this group mentioned that Bill Adams had challenged him to create a program like this in a meeting in January, and they were back to report their results.
During the summer session, this group of teachers taught these students computer skills and spent extra time instructing them about science, engineering, and math. The teachers who made their presentation to the board gave example after example of real progress made by these students, at times relating experiences of over 20% improvement in performance. This was a tremendous success story for these youths, and these educators deserve our strongest congratulations.
Next Board Meeting
The next meeting of the Rockwood School Board is on August 2nd. For more information, see the Rockwood website. I strongly encourage all Rockwood parents to attend -- you can't make an informed choice without knowledge. Please come, observe, and learn.
-- bab
No comments:
Post a Comment