WNESU Board Meeting 1: March 26

First meeting of the district board, which is made up of lots of reps from all the other boards but which (I am told) has very limited authority since this is vested in the individual boards. I think this board is more an efficiency of getting all the boards (how many are there—maybe 6?) to hear the same stuff at one place, rather than bringing it to a bunch of boards and repeating it again and again. Do we need this many boards and is this the best way to lead to quality education??? This is one of those big questions about consolidating districts.

Again I am impressed by the spirit of the board members who seem to be dedicated and forward looking and focused on quality. I am sure there will be times there are disagreements, but I want to trust each person’s motivation is doing what is best for producing quality education by effectively using resources.

The big content of this meeting was hearing about district wide curriculum work in science and math. Seems like a lot of effort by teachers to look hard at what they have been doing, what is expected in these subjects (from state policy, national standards, other schools, etc), and how to map what should be taught (and learned?). This can generate a sheaf of papers with all sorts of lists and goals and tables, and if this assured student learning, we’d have the most talented kids on the planet. Unfortunately, it isn’t all that easy and even with all the time this process of curriculum planning takes, the ultimate questions are how does this impact the teaching and learning process, and how do we assess to evaluate if and how these goals are being met (and then maybe most significantly, what adjustments are made to respond in areas we fall short of the goals?) (all questions asked by board members).

This curriculum goal writing is important and was sadly not done all that well decades ago so politicians stepped into the void and came up with usually endless lists of things they thought would be good for kids to know. So now teachers are spending a lot of time trying to align these long lists of standards with what they have already been teaching and what is in the textbooks they have and what kids can actually do and the time they have. Not a bad exercise, but time consuming and too often futile when a) they learn there is not enough time (for example lots of elementary schools in the US have abandoned science and/or social studies since that isn’t on the state tests and in this district elem. teachers admit having maybe a couple hours all week for these subjects) and b) the curriculum expectations from the state/federal govt could change just when they get this all aligned. Presuming neither of these problems exist, it still will take at least a year or more before these goals will really be able to drive changes in teaching and learning (and that presumes a willingness and ability to change among teachers).

As one parent expressed in the meeting, there is a big, well researched national report that raises questions about spiraling math curricula (which includes our Everyday Math program). Changing this is a fairly major decision and while this might happen by working through these new curriculum guideposts and implementing them and assessing their impact, this will surely take longer than the time her kids are in elementary school. While the school system may have the time to evolve the curriculum or improve individual teacher practice, for families, there is an immediacy that this 3^rd grade math curriculum or that 4^th grade teacher isn’t working for their kid and that can’t really wait for next year (or beyond).

The other agenda items have to do with efforts at cost containment (esp related to Special Education spending), policies (mandated by the state or fed govt mostly), and contract negotiations (a sadly adversarial process where requests for salaries and benefits seem disassociated from the realities of the economy and the very limited (if any) increases seen in other occupations nationwide (and certainly in this region)). Regardless of how much we value our teachers, as so many people see no increase in pay and are asked to take on ever increased health care contributions, it’s hard to see how we can ask taxpayers to continually dig deeper to guarantee generous salary increases for schools (hence the challenge of contract negotiations). Best of luck to all those trying to work this out.

Board Meeting 2: March 18

First official meeting—3 hours long, I hope not because of my involvement. Plenty of responsibility—looking over NECAP scores, school budget (30+ pages!), amendments for about 20 policies, special education stats district wide, appointing truant officer (a state requirement), how to follow up on town meeting, discussion of bus costs and billing, and the inevitable executive session to decide on personnel requests related to difficult family medical issues.

I’m glad I’m good with numbers, as the numbers we receive can be difficult to interpret, and potentially misleading. NECAP scores are grouped by percentages within each category of proficiency, so that an addition at one end of the spectrum (for example adding 5 free and reduced lunch students who tend to score lower (and represents a 10% increase of overall test takers)), lowers the percentage at the other end of the spectrum even if other students do the same as the year before or even better! The other big question I have, that no one else seems to have looked at, is how do we compare to NH and RI who are taking the same test? Sure there are differences among these states, but are there any relevant patterns here? Seems like someone should look at this. (I did and we are more or less similar--NH is a tad higher, RI a bit lower.) Overall, it seems our scores on reading and math are okay, but regardless of the details of the testing or the reporting, writing here and statewide needs more work (which I imagine most adults could have told you without any state test results).

Our new finance manager seems super on top of things (apparently after spending countless hours making up for some messes she inherited). For some reasons that were discussed before I came on the board, we have a $200,000+ surplus. According to Vt Law, this either is returned to the taxpayers by lowering the tax rate or we have to have a special town meeting to determine its use. The former seems much simpler (and more popular?) than the latter (although it should be raised in town meeting some time if we should have some kind of surplus/rainy day/sinking fund for the unanticipated budgetary ups and downs from year to year). Although some expressed the surplus may make the board “look bad,” I figure anytime you lower people’s taxes, not many will complain. More significantly, the reason why this surplus exists seems to have some relationship to difficulties with the financial record keeping of previous employees. The district seems to have recognized this and acted accordingly in hiring the new finance manager who inspires confidence that this problem should not be repeated in the future. I hope the community can understand that mistakes can happen—not learning from these and addressing them is what can make the board look bad.

The other math exercise was reviewing special education student numbers. Again, a one year snapshot is pretty hard to interpret. If the number of 12^th graders with IEPs is twice the number of 9^th graders, is this a bubble that has gone through the system or do our numbers increase over time in high school? Why don’t numbers drop over the years as at least a few kids work their way off IEPs? Are there particular reasons our numbers are higher than elsewhere in the state/country? Do we really get border crossers who leave NH for VT because we offer better services (and do these services outweigh the perceived “tax advantage” of living in NH)? And is the drop in total number of SPED students in the district (from about 350 to 300 over 6 years) a reflection of better special education services or simply mirroring the drop of overall student population in the district as a whole? And most significantly (and incredibly difficult to answer), are lower SPED numbers a reflection of better teaching or worse identification or lucky demographics….???? The only useful numbers, I think, are to look at the same kids (or group of kids) over time to see if numbers go up or down or stay the same. This is not exactly the level of detail we on the board are looking at.

The toughest issues to me are the personnel requests for paid leave around very real health and family issues. My inclination is to want to be as compassionate and flexible and supportive as possible. As an employer, I have learned of the awesome responsibility you have to help make employee’s lives workable. Each individual circumstance deserves the kind of personal attention and consideration that reflects the uniqueness of each person. But then with schools, it seems so much is tied into a negotiated contract and state and federal laws that delineate conditions that apply to every employee without regard to individual circumstance. If there seemed more flexibility and personalization from all sides, it would be easier to respond on an individual basis. Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to be the nature of the terms that get negotiated at contract time. So I feel stuck between wanting to support and honor our teachers (while remaining responsible to taxpayers) and the reality of a contract that too often limits the flexibility of schools to do what is best for kids and learning. Is there any hope to change this reality?

School Board Meeting 1: March 11

The board seems an amicable group—good spirited and good willed. Meeting round the table in the Superintendent’s office, you feel like you actually are at a school director’s meeting more than a public gathering. At the same time, there is a palpable sense of being a public representative, kind of like we are entrusted with the thinking and interests of the whole community. Fortunately, not much we talk about would generate strong opinions from the community (although the $48 per hour roof shovelers get can rile up even us board members who are looking to change careers now). If feels more like we are the keepers of integrity, aiming to do the “right thing” based on what we would we consider community standards.

My biggest insight from this first meeting was realizing the real monetary costs of doing the right thing. While it is easy to appreciate the value of Family and Medical Leave Act or looking out for homeless children, it can get expensive to fund the surprise expenses these entail. A teacher going to care for an ill parent or child, a family evicted from another district who finds themselves in ours but retains the legitimate right to stay in their old school placement (at our shared expense for transport)---these cost real money and they can’t really be planned for. The issue of mobile kids, so often among the most needy, really makes me question the utility of local funding when the families themselves can be far from local. A family moves in mid year with a slew of kids and expensive Special Ed needs can really wreak havoc with a budget. What if the money followed the kid in some prorated way? Would this system make more sense? Worth thinking more about.

About the roof shoveling—apparently it only is needed once in a decade or so, so maybe too unusual to worry about. But it seems you could find a load of folk to shovel for $20 an hour (or even as volunteers). But is this too big a liability risk for the school? Can it be organized on short notice when the roof needs shoveling? For the $5000 or so it cost, is it simpler and safer just to hire this seemingly overpriced service complete with workman’s comp and insurance and such rather than save maybe 3-4000 once every decade and be exposed to more headaches and potentially greater costs???? I’d love to hear from the community on this one.