WNESU Board Meeting 3/25/09

The first meeting after town meeting is officially the “Reorganization” Meeting to vote in new officers and committee assignments. Apparently, at least one citizen complained that the chair is not rotated among the towns (as she claims was the original intent). The implication is somehow the chair has special powers and exercises them in the advantage of individual towns. I have certainly never witnessed either (any power in the chair (or not much in the board as a whole for that matter) nor any effort by the chair (or any board member) to particularly advantage their town). It always seems to me that we are of one community, representing the best interests of taxpayers and kids in this region (as it should be). So, we basically renominated the same folk for the same positions (such is the case that anyone willing to take on one of these titles is not opposed by a slate of competition). The Superintendent’s Report included a $3 million grant for Safe and Healthy Schools (loads of probably good ideas, slim chance of getting this competitive grant, but probably elicited some ideas that are worth pursuing somehow—of course, piece meal efforts can have limited impact, so this balance of trying small efforts (often costly in time and energy) versus either doing something comprehensive or not at all is the question of effectiveness and commitment of resources. Although it can look good to make any effort, no matter how small, I tend to be more concerned that these can have such minor (if any) results and lead to program creep and distractions that can lessen quality elsewhere. The school calendar was presented. Two big problems: 1) February break is tied to Springfield, making us, I think, the only district in the state who takes the week off when Vt is full of tourists instead of the following week when there are all sorts of deals for Vermonters and families. And all these families that have commitments with the rest of Vermont schools (or most of NH) have this annoying situation of having different vacations for kids and parents. We were told this schedule is determined by the regional superintendents (but why Springfield rules this and Brat doesn’t follow wasn’t clear to me) and we have no say in it. And the reason we go with Springfield is that we have about 25 kids at the tech center there and about 8 in Brat. So for a net of 17 kids, we are stuck with a vacation week that I heard countless complaints about and supposedly can’t do anything about this. Let’s encourage the state ed commissioner to make a statewide schedule to get Springfield on board with everyone else. The other schedule issue raised was the short lead time for break before Xmas. The schools are closed Dec 24, which can really cramp families who may need to travel to be together for Christmas eve. Again, we are told this is determined by the other superintendents (are these supes just powerhouses who roll over ours???). Not the best idea for families who may celebrate the holiday together. Other agenda items: Created a committee with reps from every board to look at spending of Medicaid moneys (I am on this committee but don’t get all the issue yet—somehow there is a chunk of money (like more than $400,000) that is sitting around and needs to be expended. I don’t get why this is sitting around but I guess I will learn. The other heads up was about new requirements from the state for early ed admissions. We are being directed to make admissions decided by a lottery to be fair to all kids. There are many questions about this, mostly what to do with kids who may live closer to one program than another or if need comes into the equation at all. Apparently, there are about 15-20 more kids who want to be in this program than we have space for, so the idea of adding a site would cover everyone (as we probably should, given the benefits of early ed for later success). Finally, the finance head presented this attractive idea of getting a consulting firm who supposedly can get super good prices for energy resources. These guys work with Dartmouth and GE and other big entities and advertise getting prices as low as like $1.78 per gallon for Springfield for next year. This idea of pooling purchasing and skipping middlemen seems wise and the pricing sounds like a potential big savings. But, given the recent economic surprises nationwide, I think whenever you hear about a deal too good to be true, you have to do pretty strong due diligence. I hope we check for assurances that the oil is guaranteed, the price is guaranteed, and the company has the resources to back up their promises. These guys seem very reputable, but so did Enron or Madoff or Lehman Bank. We can’t be so afraid of being burned to do nothing that is wise and saves money, but I think we hopefully have learned as a nation that you got to be pretty careful to check things out before jumping at an opportunity. And yes, the next meeting is planned (again) during school vacation. This is a continual struggle for board members (whom are almost non-existent) with kids in school who may actually use the time their children are off to spend time together as a family.

Westminster Board Meeting March 19

Happily, the school (through the action planning committee) has developed a survey sent home to parents. Maybe not a perfect instrument, but something that is a start to getting some parent feedback about the school that can serve as one benchmark for school improvement over time. It would be nice to have something that is also completed by community members without kids in school, but it will be hard enough to get these surveys back that maybe we don’t have to go there yet (survey return rates can be as low as 2 or 3% so the results of such a survey need to be considered in light of response rates).

The other big news from the principal is the hiring process of Maggie Nowers, long time Office Czar at Westminster Schools. Undoubtedly, this transition can be a real challenge for the school. Maggie is irreplaceable in many ways and probably a huge amount of information is filed in her head. Hopefully, she can help with the transition. At the same time, this is an opportunity to look at how some things may be done differently (like ways to save paper and other resources through some use of technology or streamlined processes). Keep your fingers crossed.

The superintendent reported on the stimulus package (as much as is known so far). This is the kind of stuff that can drive fiscal conservatives a bit crazy. Not much is known, what is known is filtered through state officials who are not portrayed at the local level as the sharpest tacks in the box, and the direction of use seems to be to spend money on things that “improve education” but don’t have on-going expenses and doesn't just offset pre-budgeted expenses. While surely there are some expenditures that will have real educational benefits, nothing specific has been on the board radar for using these funds (although buying computers or books or class materials seems both stimulative for the economy and have long term benefits for kids). Hopefully the board will hear some of these plans from the school before too many decisions are made about spending these unexpected resources.

The big excitement at this meeting, at least by turnout, was the issue of “transitions.” In what passes as a public crowd, there were about 6 parents who showed up (although given the title, I am not sure how they could tell what exactly the focus was). What most of these parents wanted to talk about was complaining about their experience with the middle school they felt they had to have their child attend (although why they didn’t see any other option as viable was a puzzle to me) and then suggesting the idea of having a 7-8 program at Westminster (it should be noted one parent did defend the middle school with observations of the positive experience for her child). This then slid into a discussion about the costs and benefits of a 7-8 program at Westminster (that, of course, given the context, had little grounding in anything beyond opinion). I raised the point that if we are looking at questions about the current system of choice, this group was less than representative and that the history of what parents choose shows a pretty good number who seem to value having choices. No one who chose another option was at this meeting (as the agenda item was not stated as a question about eliminating choice). This is another one of those slippery areas for the board in considering if we are representing the whole of the community, parents of school kids as a whole, the best interests for education or kids as a whole, those who show up at a meeting, …???? I sense a tendency to overweight the very small number who show up at a meeting, although we do much too little to ensure diverse views might be aware of the issues at hand and encouraged to participate more visibly.

I don’t know if we got anywhere on the questions of transitions, except to hear that some people are not happy with the experience at the middle school, others are happy with this, and the conclusion that different kids have different reactions to any particular school experience. For me, this underlies my belief that more options are better than fewer since we can never really be all things to all people. Others seem to believe that having a “seat at the table” in a monolithic system (like someone on the school board) can address concerns and shortcomings. Unfortunately, my experience on the board and around schools makes me skeptical about how much influence a board can have, or even a principal, in changing teaching practices in a way that can best serve all kids.

The meeting ended on a more upbeat note with the principal evaluation where the superintendent rightly acknowledged the many strengths of Steve Tullar and his persistence in trying to improve learning at the school in the face of all sorts of elements in “the system” that make these kind of improvements much more difficult to achieve than most of us would want.