Should the superintendent blog?

If Dr. Larson had a blog, would you read it? Would you add comments to it?

He is considering starting a blog to better communicate with Rockwood students, faculty, staff, parents, and patrons. If he did this, would you participate? You'd be reading things he directly wrote, you'd be able to respond directly to him, and hear what he thinks. You could have a conversation with him online.

If you're interested in this, please email me through this blog or leave a comment here. I'll gather them up and forward them to the district.

Thanks!

bab

The 4th and final meeting of the Electioneering Committee

At long last, the Electioneering Committee completed its task of revisiting Regulation 0380. Their original charter from the board was to reread the regulation and make any modifications necessary to avoid the confusion on the part of the district representatives that happened immediately preceding the 2007 Board elections in April.

The End Result

So I don't keep you in suspense, I'll fill you in on the conclusion of the committee's meeting now, and then fill in details afterwards.

The committee did revisit the regulation, and made some changes to it. Most of them seemed pretty trivial, with only two controversies.

Approving materials for publication

The first point of contention was to decide who had the final say as to whether or not a piece of campaign literature submitted to the district by an outside body and intended to be distributed by the district was advocational or not. The committee was unable to come to consensus on this question.

Definition of working hours

Part of the regulations specified what Rockwood employees were allowed and not allowed to do during "working hours". There were lots of questions around what "working hours" meant. For example, did it mean all hours for which you were paid? If so, then do you consider vacation days to be "working hours", since employees are being paid for them? The committee decided to drop the language attempting to define "working hours" entirely, in favor of recognizing that teachers, staff, and administrators are citizens as well as Rockwood employees, and as such, have the right to participate in political campaigns.

Other changes

A change was agreed to that required all materials from outside groups about elections to be submitted for approval to the Communications Department prior to distribution by the district.

Background and explanation

For those of you who may not know, there was a bit of trouble this last election season. The PSO submitted a flier to be sent home in student backpacks the Friday before the election. This flier said that there was an election coming up, mentioned the names of the two registered candidates, and the name of the active write-in candidate. I've seen the flier, and that was the extent of what it said.

Now, for one reason or another, someone protested the word "active" which was used to describe the write in candidate, and the person in charge of the district at the time (Dr. Larson was out of town, so it was another administrator in the district) decided that this language was not acceptable. That led to this flier being pulled from backpacks and the information about the election not being distributed to district parents.

This issue is really important to the district. According to the laws of Missouri, publicly funded institutions, such as school districts, are prohibited from advocating for or against any board candidate or ballot issue. If the district were to violate this law, they leave themselves open to lawsuits and other penalties. Also according to the laws of the state, the Board of Education is viewed as the legal embodiment of the district, so any violation of the aforementioned law would be blamed on the Board. Since the Board is responsible for these decisions, then an argument can be made that they should have the authority to approve or disapprove of campaign literature as it is submitted.

On the other hand (there's always an other hand, eh?), when it comes to Board elections, there could certainly be a conflict of interest. Our Board has factions on it, as do most Boards I imagine, which means that each member has their own vested interests about who wins and loses elections, which may make it difficult for them to pass judgment on campaign literature.

Given that an actual or perceived conflict of interest could exist for Board elections, a suggestion was made that to move the authority for making this decision to some other person in the district. The actual wording moved the responsibility for making these decisions to the Communications Department, in consultation with legal counsel, and the Superintendent.

The Discussion

So this wording generated most of the conversation at the final meeting. There were people on both sides of the issue. The ones who wanted the responsibility left with the Board fell back on two arguments. The first was that they are legally responsible anyhow, so the decision should be there. And the point was made that the Board is not actually legally bound to follow the policies and regulations, so they could decide to step in anyhow. Those on the other side  focused on the fact that the Board members really are "above the law" when it comes to any punishment that can be meted out to them by the district or fellow Board members. A staff member, however, would put their job at risk should they violate any part of this regulation or the state law, so they are more able to be controlled. 

The committee members went back and forth talking about this single sentence for the longest time until they finally took a vote.It came up tied. They talked more. At the end of all this talking, all they were able to do was to decide to forward the newly modified regulation back to the Board along with a statement about how they couldn't decide on this issue. 

So, after 4 meetings, this issue, the crux of the entire issue, wasn't decided.

Why it doesn't matter

This particular Board has a habit of asking for input from parents and staff, and then ignoring it. This happened with the high school schedule and redistricting committees as well as a failed bond issue recently. So, although the committee did excellent work in crafting the new regulation, the Board is going to do what it pleases, input be damned. And this is the problem with this Board.

Make your voice heard

This issue is going to come up at a Board meeting soon, either the beginning of September or October. Show up for the BOE meeting, listen to the reading of the regulation as drafted by the committee, and watch what the board does with it.

Odds are that it will be changed greatly. History says that it will. So, please tell me, why should some kind parent volunteer their time, spend multiple evenings discussing issues such as these, deliberate thoughtfully, and carefully craft their decisions, if their only payback is to be ignored? Is this a good way to encourage volunteerism?

-- bab

Letter to the Editor of West News Magazine

As I mentioned in my last post, I had a letter to the editor of West News Magazine published the end of July. They don't keep the letters archived as weeks pass by, so I've added the text of the letter to the bottom of this post.

In this letter, written as I sat in the BOE meeting, I express my disagreement with the single patron comment voiced in that meeting.

Please read this letter. If you agree with it, then join me in supporting Dr. Larson. He's been an important influence on Rockwood during his time here, and it would be a shame to allow factions of the board to engineer his exit.

Editor:

I'm sitting here in the Rockwood BOE meeting, where a district parent just made an impassioned plea to the board to work out an orderly exit strategy for the current superintendent, Dr. Craig Larson, and begin an immediate search for a new superintendent. While I heard his message, I could not disagree with it more.

Dr. Larson has been an excellent superintendent during his entire tenure, promising improvements in the district's financial and academic performance and then delivering on it. His ability to initiate change has been adversely affected, however, over the last 6 months. Dr. Larson and his actions have not changed -- what has changed is the makeup and character of the board. Previous to this, the board was willing to listen and work with the superintendent. Now, they seem to be at odds most of the time. Dr. Larson doesn't seem to be the problem. That only leaves a change in the board...

So my suggestion would be, instead of buying out and replacing Dr. Larson, perhaps portions of the board should adopt a more professional attitude and remember how to work together. There is no requirement that we like those with whom we work, but we must respect them. This is what adults do. We still have the opportunity to get two more years of excellent service from this outstanding man, and we would be foolish to waste it.

When the time is right, a year from now, ask Dr. Larson to use his years of knowledge and contacts to lead the effort to find the best replacement candidate possible. I'm sure he will approach this challenge with the same energy, drive, and excellence that he has used over the rest of his career, both in Rockwood and before.

-- bab

Report from Board Meeting of July, 19th, 2007

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

Report from Electioneering Committee, July, 12, 2007

I had the genuine pleasure of attending a meeting of the Electioneering Committee of the Rockwood School Board this past week. This board is chaired by Steve Banton, with Peggy Devoy and Mary Battenberg as members as well. At this particular meeting, only Steve and Peggy were there of the 3 board members, due to another commitment of Mary's. Also in attendance were several parents, the board lawyer, Kim Cranston (Director of Communications), representatives of the RNEA (teachers' union), and a few others I've missed here. As far as I could tell, there were only 2 non-members present.

Meeting purpose

The purpose of this meeting was to discuss the use of email through the district-owned domain, rockwood.k12.mo.us, for purposes of advocating election issues, including bonds and BOE candidates. In a previous meeting of this committee, they discussed use of other Rockwood resources for electioneering.

What brought this up?

This whole issue came up because of some events that transpired during the past board election season in April, 2007. Without going into explicit details about who did what and why they did it, the events in question involved emails sent by employees of Rockwood into the district email system and from the district email system, and potentially emails sent by BOE members into the email system (more about this last detail later). Even though there was a policy in place, it seems that this policy was ignored in the heat leading up to that election, and potentially reinterpreted after the election in a manner clearly not in the spirit of the rules. To prevent that from happening again, this committee was tasked clarifying the guidelines.

The discussions

The discussion centered around the ownership of the rockwood.k12.mo.us domain name, what the allowed use of the email system was with respect to advocating election-related issues, who the policy applies to, with a slight detour into consequences for violating these rules.

The underlying fact behind all of this, agreed to by all, is that rockwood.k12.mo.us is wholly owned by Rockwood. Every employee of the district is bound by the district's acceptable usage policy to refrain from electioneering using district-owned resources. This applies whether the resource is real, as in the case of copier or facilities, or virtual, as in servers, email systems, and the intra-net. This policy is necessitated by court rulings stating that public institutions cannot advocate election issues using public funds or things purchased with public funds. The lawyer explained this quite clearly, and it made perfect sense.

There is a special relationship, however, that teachers and their union have that allows for a different set of rules. This relationship is governed by a separate memorandum of understanding that the union has with the district. The teachers' union interviews and makes decisions about which of the candidates to support, and they are allowed to distribute this information to their teachers via email. They have done this in the past, and it only now seems to have become an issue. The representative of the union was pretty emphatic that this behavior was allowed, and the committee listened to his statements carefully.

Another point of contention was how these regulations and policies would affect district parents and other non-employees. They talked about this for a while and went around and around a bit. Part of the discussion centered around the use of filtering systems to refuse email containing keywords, like election and the like, but Mr. Banton quickly explained how that would be completely impractical. There is too large a chance of false positives, causing email between parents and teachers to be refused. Personally, I'm pretty sure that the district doesn't send me a paycheck, I'm pretty sure I have no business relationship with them, and I'm pretty sure that their regulations don't apply to me. I'm allowed to send email to anyone I please. They do have to keep the language in the policy to prohibit non-employees from using the email system for these purposes, to satisfy the letter of the law, but that part of the regulation is unenforceable on non-employees. Unfortunately, this leads directly to another problem...

So what do you suppose should happen if a member of the BOE were to send electioneering emails into the district email system? These are the people who set the policies that others should follow, these are the people who are supposed to set the example for all others to follow, these are the people for whom you voted (well, some of you, anyhow). The BOE members are not employed by the district, so they fall into the non-employee category, same as parents. So, yeah, they're not supposed to do it, but there is nothing that the district can do if they violate that part of the policy.

However, ethically and morally, there would be no excuse for a member of the board doing this. It would be ethically wrong, morally wrong, and would set a very bad example if a member of the Board of Education were to violate the very same policies that they put into place to govern the actions of those under them. These people were elected by the public to represent their interests to the school district, and they should be held to a high standard of behavior. Were I to discover an act like this, I would believe it to be my duty to expose such an ethical violation. You can't gain the respect of people if you live by a different set of rules than those that you've imposed on them.

If any board member happens to have done this, I truly hope that they feel shame, great amounts of shame. Unfortunately, the kind of person who would ignore their ethical responsibilities like this would also likely not have enough of a conscience to feel that shame.

Next Steps

There really were no definite conclusions reached tonight. This was a working meeting and, as such, created as many questions as answers. As issues were raised and discussed, changes were made in the prospective wording of section 0380 of Rockwood's policies. These changes have to be made and published to the committee so that they can be approved in their final form. The next meeting of the committee is on August 9th, where they should finalize some of the language of the policies and clarify some of the intent. After about 2 hours, the meeting was adjourned.

Side note

I enjoyed attending this meeting. Mr. Banton conducted it with quiet authority, respect for all participants, and a collaborative attitude. The committee members conducted themselves as I would expect an organization of professionals to act. There was discussion, there was listening, and there was critical thought. It was my pleasure to be a part of it.

Oh, what a night! Rockwood BOE meeting, June, 27, 2007

Oh, what I saw last night. I had the pleasure of attending the Rockwood Board of Education meeting last night, and it was amazing. What I saw, from grown people, how they behaved, how they drew conclusions, and how they railroaded an opinion through, just floored me. I was under the impression that the members of a school board were there to work together, to collaborate and deliberate, and come to a reasoned conclusion, while adhering to previously agreed-to procedures. Silly me. It turns out I was only 3/7ths right.

The issue

The issue up for debate (and I use that word very loosely) was whether or not the board should authorize hiring a Director of Secondary Education, and instruct Dr. Larson, the Superintendent, to interview and hire the best candidate. According to at least one board member who was in favor of this idea, it was imperative that this issue be voted on and approved tonight to allow the hiring process to begin, because they wanted to have the person in place before the school year begins, in 6 or 7 weeks. So, give the importance of this position, and the timing, it had to be voted on at this meeting.

Huh?

Now, I'm a curious kind, so this raised a few questions in my head. The position that they were voting to staff at this date was one that had been initially approved several years ago (opinions differed on exactly when it was approved. I heard 4 years and 6 years, I believe, but I'm quoting those numbers from memory), yet had never been approved for hiring until this push now. The creation and filling of this position would directly affect Dr. Larson, as this person would indirectly work for him and would be taking over some of his duties. Additionally, Craig Larson has decades of experience as a professional education administrator, so would presumably have some good input into a debate like this. But wait...

Dr. Larson is out of town. In China.

Oh, and the CFO of the district is out on medical leave right now.

So what would the motivation be for having this vote now, when two of the people who would seemingly be important to the discussion would be unable to attend? Is there some unseen hand directing this play from behind the scenes? Hmmmm, #1

A Motion to Delay for 2 Weeks

Apparently I wasn't the only one who thought something seemed strange here. A seemingly reasonable motion was introduced to delay the vote until Dr. Larson could return. Makes sense to me. Makes sense to others I was around. And it made a lot of sense when the BOE members who supported the motion explained it. Their explanation centered around a couple of things. The first, and obvious, reason was that Dr. Larson was not there, but would be back in a week or so. The second, as I recall, was that the board and district have certain well defined procedures about how to go about authorizing a position, deciding what its responsibilities should be, posting the position, interviewing for it, deciding on the candidate to hire, and finally hiring. But this motion was bypassing all of that and going directly to the hiring step before the job description was even agreed upon, let alone written. And finally, the point was raised that Rockwood should only hire quality candidates, and 6 weeks before school starts, all the good administrators already have jobs. There would be far more qualified candidates for this position available after the first of the year rather than right now. According to this argument, it made more sense to wait until next year to hire, while conducting a reasonable search throughout this school year.

I have to admit, this argument makes a lot of reasoned, logical sense.

But it was voted down, 4-3. Hmmmm, #2

The Vote

So after having dispensed with this notion of delaying the vote until those affected by the motion could attend, the board moved on to vote on the original motion. I know this might come as a shock to you, but it passed. 4-3. Same 4, same 3. Hmmmm, #3

I think it's broke...

I can honestly say that this board, as currently constituted, is broken. There are clearly two completely separate factions, one governed by reason, and the other whose sole motivation seems to be undermining the current superintendent. One can only speculate as to who is directing the 4, but they don't seem to be governed at all by reason, procedure, or protocol. Their actions seem ad hoc to say the least, and do not engender a feeling of confidence in their leadership or management abilities. The sad part is that 2 of the 4 make up the executive leadership of the BOE, so they have the ability to direct the board in whatever direction their imaginations want to take it. To me, that spells trouble and chaos.

My conclusions

I left there with one overwhelming urge, one silly, crazy, insane idea. I can't believe I'm considering this, but I can't believe I wouldn't consider it. As a taxpayer, as a resident of the school district governed by this august body, I have to do something. This dysfunctional board leadership cannot continue. Our district is strong, financially sound, has an amazing amount of parental involvement, great test scores, and is generally a happy place. That is seriously in jeopardy if these 4 continue down this path. I'm seriously considering running for the board. 2 of the 4 are ending their terms this year, as well as 1 of the 3, and the odds of tipping the tide away from chaos and back towards reason would seem pretty good. I know my skills as a facilitator, manager, organizational change agent, and collaborator would help draw the factions on this board back together and allow Rockwood to continue on its path towards excellence (See, I already sound like a politician :)). Not sure yet, but boy, it would be a blast!

Stay tuned for more here. I intend to blog about future developments in the Rockwood district and its board meetings. I might even bring my video camera and stick some choice footage onto YouTube after juicy moments (assuming that private citizens filming board meetings is allowed). Its gonna be a fun ride!

-- bab