Oct 18 BOE meeting -- the gloves come off!

Lots of good stuff from this meeting. The best part of this meeting was the patron comments, of which there were 7. We'll get to them shortly. So here's the summary with a few comments interspersed.

Summary

• Standing committee reports
• Patron Comments
• Superintendent's Update
• Pandemic Flu presentation
• Bond Survey discussion
• Elementary Capacity Committee report
• Enrollment Projections report

Standing Committee Report

As is the custom, before the Board breaks for its closed session (we should talk about these...), they get reports from the Board Standing Committees.

Combined Operations/Community Relations Meeting
Tuesday, October 9th, these two Standing Committees held a joint meeting to discuss the upcoming Bond Issue survey. Two members of the Facilities Committee, Nancy Hanks and I, were invited to attend as well, since our committee is charged with defining the contents of the bond. We met with Ken DeSieghardt, a consultant brought in to define and conduct the survey. We spent about half hour or so discussing proposed questions from Ken, making choices about what questions to include and leave off, and talked about how his firm would be conducting the survey.

The biggest conversation centered around including questions about the amount of the proposed bond issue. I'll explain more about the issue later in this post.

Planning and Student Achievement Committee

Not a lot from them. They discussed the technology proposed for the bond issue, consisting of talking about hiring more employees to support technology through the district, and about potentially moving some of the 75 cents of the Rockwood assessment from the bond debt levy into the general fund.

The one key point you can draw from this discussion is that everyone in Rockwood needs more money. Every committee, every department, every administrator. Everyone needs more money. That has been my biggest realization of late, in working with the Board and its committees -- in the commercial world, companies have the ability to generate revenue to fund their activities, which creates an environment where money is potentially not as tight as in the public sector. If the company is successful, there is an excellent chance that they will have enough money to provide for all the necessities, as well as some luxuries. In the public sector, things are not like that at all. The district lives on a fixed budget, which means they have to make difficult choices every day. Everything they do is underfunded, because the money just isn't there.

Patron Comments

There were 7 patron comments this evening. Each person speaking had a particular problem with the district or Board, and they all spoke very eloquently about their issue.

Schools pushing video games to children

A district father started off the comments with a complaint about a book order form that his child brought home from school. The form had been given to his child by the teacher, along with a letter explaining that the classroom would be given free books if enough students ordered from the catalog. The problem the parent had with this was that the catalog included video games. These video games did nothing to contribute to the education of children, and actively encouraged them to play these games instead of doing something more active. This father very clearly made his point that this kind of advertising didn't belong in the classroom, and he wanted it out.

In my mind, this father raises a very interesting point. Gerald Weinberg, a business consultant author I read, writes about acting congruently with ones words. The district does use a lot of words about doing what is best for children, but their actions don't always match. Strictly based on my own observations, school lunch rooms serve a lot of junk food, there are soda machines on campus, video games are sold at book fairs, and I'm sure there is a lot more that I just haven't seen. Kids repeat what they've been taught, and good eating habits and reading habits would be excellent actions for children to repeat.

Everyday Math Program
A mother came to the board very concerned about the way her child was being taught math. The district has begun to use a program called Everyday Math, developed very recently at the University of Chicago. This program represents a very different method of teaching math, focusing on teaching children non-traditional strategies for doing things like adding and subtracting numbers.

Her child was having problems learning math this way, and the teacher had no alternative teaching method available. It was Everyday Math or nothing.

Quite logically, this mother wanted to learn more about this program, so she looked for her child's text book. There isn't one. Teachers have a book, but students don't. OK, so she wanted to see the teacher's edition. This teacher felt that they had to check with the district before allowing the parent to see this book. After some number of weeks had passed, the teacher refused to allow the parent to see the book, because the district wouldn't let parents see it.

She was quite upset about this, as her child was failing, this particular teaching method was not reaching her child, and she had absolutely no visibility into what the student was being taught, how she could help, or anything at all about it.

Clearly, this is a case of the district falling down on its responsibility to communicate effectively with parents about the progress of their children.

The Board is not obligated to answer, or even address, patron comments, but this comment deserves, and even demands, action. Anecdotally, I've heard from several parents very similar stories. This math program is mildly controversial across the country, as more than a few students are having problems with it. I think we need some answers.

More information about this program is available at a lot of sites on the web.

Rockwood Schools Foundation Funding

The next two speakers asked the Board to continue funding the Rockwood Schools Foundation. They spoke about the great things that the foundation is doing, like giving teachers grants to try innovative teaching methods, creating permanent art structures in schools, and creating excitement in students, parents, administrators, and teachers in Rockwood schools. Both of them asked the Board to continue donating the cell tower easement income to the foundation, to enable it to continue these programs as it grows and expands into a self-funding entity.

Community Support for the 2008 Bond Issue

Two parents came forward to complain very clearly and vociferously to the Board about their actions, behavior, and attitude towards Dr. Larson, teachers, and parents. The message delivered is that there is a growing number of parents who are very dissatisfied with this Board. An example was given of particular behaviors by two of the Board members at a recent Town Hall meeting attended by Dr. Larson. The actions of these Board members were so bad that parents were visibly embarrassed. This behavior and this attitude must stop, or the Board risks alienating even more of the community.

The thing that makes this alienation all the more dangerous is that the community support is critically important to the passage of the 2008 bond issue. Without strong support from the community, and parents such as these two ladies, the bond has no chance of passing. These ladies were both very active in their involvement, have the ear of many district parents and patrons, and can mobilize enough voters to make a difference. If any of you doubt it, just remember how close the election was this spring -- in three weeks, they crafted a write-in campaign that came within a few votes of unseating an incumbent Board member.

It was made very clear that they are willing and able to mobilize these voters again, come April 2008. The actions of the Board would dictate what these voters would do.

Grading and Assessment Policy

Rockwood has been working very hard for quite a while now to define a new grading and assessment policy. This policy affects how children are graded, how homework is figured into a student's grades, and what types of assessments are done to gauge a student's progress. This policy is slowly being phased in throughout the district, grade by grade.

The problem is that the policy hasn't been communicated to parents well at all. I know about it because I attend Board meetings and hear the discussions about it. Few other parents in the district know anything about it.This parent reported that teachers were confused about the policy, as the policy hasn't been defined yet. PTO Presidents were just made aware of the policy last week. He was also curious about what kind of data is available to prove that this new grading policy is effective.

Lots of questions, very few answers, very poor communication.

Superintendent's Update

Dr. Larson reported on a visit to Rockwood by its long-time security consultant, Jesus Villahermosa. Jesus was here for his annual presentations to 6th graders about safety issues. While he was here, he gave presentations to the Facilities Committee and others. Rockwood has an outstanding safety record, but they need to start looking past fire and earthquake kinds of safety issues and focus on the kinds of issues that have been affecting schools lately. Dr. Larson specifically mentioned the lockdowns that have been happening around the country in response to several school shootings. Unfortunately this is the world we live in, so the district needs to be prepared for such occurrences.

Pandemic Flu Preparation Discussion

Tim Woerther graciously offered his time to the Board to give a report on his group, Pandemic Prep. Their mission is to develop awareness across St. Louis of the issues and risks associated with a flu pandemic, and what we can do as individuals and as a district to prepare for such a situation.

The last flu pandemic to hit the St. Louis area happened in 1918. Flu hit cities all over the country, and different areas were affected by it by differing amounts. He compared the affects of the flu in Philadelphia with St. Louis, and showed how the preparations and mitigations performed here lessened the impact of the flu, decreased its mortality rate, and reduced the rate of infection.

During 1918, in St. Louis, to prevent the spread of the virus, public gatherings places were closed, such as school, theaters, churches, and libraries.

We need to create a similar city-wide plan for 2007, including updating measures from 1918 to today's terms, like MetroLink instead of streetcars.

The important next steps that the area needs to take are to choose those tactics that are thought to be effective as preventing or mitigating, decide on a trigger point to implement those actions, and review and communicate the plan.

This is not the first time that the Board has had conversations about a possible flu pandemic. Dr. Larson observed that flu has killed more people than any other disease in the history of mankind. I've never really paid attention to discussions about possible pandemics, but Tim made a very good case. Maybe it is worth investing a bit of time and effort to prepare ourselves for what could be a civilization-changing event.

Bond Survey Discussion

One of Ken DeSieghardt's associates came back to the Board to present the final proposal for the survey. He brought back two versions of the survey. The only difference between the two versions was that one version included several questions feeling out the public about their feelings concerning the possible amount of the bond issue, and the other didn't. Almost all of the discussion centered around whether or not to include these questions, and if so, what should the questions say.

OK, since the Board discussed it in open session, I guess it is OK to talk about it here. The issue is that Rockwood has had a habit of creating bond issues that are in the $45 million range. This year, they have more needs. A lot more needs. They are discussing proposing a bond issue somewhere over $70 million dollars. And the truth is, they really need it. But no one knows how the public is going to react to this number. Will they have sticker shock and vote it down? Or will they look at the quality of items in the bond issue and approve it? No one knows.

So the question becomes whether or not questions about the possibly acceptable sizes of the bond issue should be made part of the survey. On one hand, this question is not usually asked for a bond issue that doesn't include a tax rate increase. On the other hand, Rockwood really needs this bond issue, so if the public won't go for the size bond issue that they're proposing, then we need to know this now so the bond contents can be downsized. Having to do this would be tremendously painful, but passing a bond issue is an all or nothing thing, so everything that can be done to reduce the risk of it being voted down must be done.

After asking a few questions, the Board decided that the questions about the size of the bond issue should be included in the survey. That left the complication of deciding what bond amounts to ask about. Some were in favor of starting very high, like at $95 million and working down, knowing full well that we would never ask for that much, but relying on the hope that it would make the lesser numbers seem more palatable. Others wanted to avoid the excessive sticker shock of starting so high and keeping the questions centered around numbers that were actually possible.

About this time, one Board member reopened the question about whether or not to include the questions at all. She was concerned that the answers that came back might not be what they wanted to hear. At this point, Bill Adams had the line of the entire meeting when he said that fear of not liking an answer is not a reason not to ask a question. Bravo, Bill. Very well said.

The whole point of the survey is to gather what the public is thinking. Rockwood needs this data to know what to propose for the bond, or even if they should propose a bond. It is of critical importance that the information they get back from the survey be the unvarnished truth, because that is what is needed to know how to plot the course to the next election.

Final amounts of the questions were to be left to the survey company's best judgement, as they are the experts, but it will be something like $85/$75/$65 million.

We'll find out the results of the survey at the meeting on 11/8. If I were you, and I was remotely curious about the bond issue, I'd be there!

Elementary Capacity Committee Report

Shirley Broz came back to the Board to update her report from several months ago. The Board had instructed her to go back with slightly different assumptions and redo her conclusions. She did it, and came back. What she reported is that there are several elementary schools that are sorely in need of more space. There are 5 elementary schools that have insufficient SSD space and 4 other schools that lack Adventure Club space. More information is available on BoardDocs.

Shirley graciously came to the Facilities Committee meeting this week and gave us the same presentation that she gave the Board. It was just as good this time as the first time I heard it :)

Enrollment Projections

Formal enrollment counts are taken the last Wednesday of September and January. Rockwood has an official enrollment of 23,332 students, including SSD and VICC. This represents an increase of a few hundred since last year, making our enrollment growth curve basically flat. More information is available on BoardDocs.

Conclusion

That was basically all that was talked about at this meeting. The highlights were the conversations about the Bond survey and the 7 wonderful patron comments. I truly love the courage and passion possessed by parents who speak at Board meetings. Great job to all of them!

The next Board meeting will be on 11/8. This is the meeting where the bond survey results will come back, so I truly and highly recommend that every one of you (ok, both of you) readers attend.

Until next time...

-- bab