Welcome Back--Oct 7

I am not really sure anyone reads this so let things lapse a while (with little public unrest that I heard). I guess a lot has happened on the board over the summer and at the same time, not much has changed. I am never too sure the board has much say on anything--most of what we do is get reported to and asked to affirm decisions made elsewhere in the system (by the state, feds, superintendent, teachers, etc). Big decisions, like spending of the $1 million plus Stimulus funds, wasn't even presented to us for input, decided internally by the administration and reported to us in the broadest possible terms (and defended afterwards for its priorities that were (somewhat inaccurately) portrayed as not focused on kids). The biggest potential decision of the recent past (and possibly affecting the direction of our schools for decades) involved what to do about BF Middle School. Unfortunately, the process for considering options for this was not very broad minded (we all know change is hard and vested interests do a lot to "protect their turf"). The one option that seemed most attractive to the committee working on this was the lure of building a new school. Ignoring estimates of costs and the burden on taxpayers, and idealizing what a new building could be (probably somewhat different in each person's mind), this had an obvious appeal. Perhaps the biggest problem with this idea (beyond the cost, the problem of location, supporters of the current site, etc) was that it would lock the district into a single, one size fits all school for decades to come (if not forever). For a district that has struggled with quality issues at various times in the past, this is a tough future to support. (Even ignoring the issue of why the same staff and practices would be markedly different in a new building), even if the new site improves things for some period, what assures future leadership (at the board or administration level) will continue improvements? To me, the biggest problem in public education are the many effects of what some call the school monopoly. Having to serve every kid in a town and with no competition, there are all sorts of negative effects, from the challenges to the school to try to be all things to all people (which is an impossible place to put educators in) to the inflexibility for kids for whom the forced school is not working to a lack of incentives for some educators to provide better services to all sorts of bureaucratic regulations to try to improve quality and efficiencies in the absence of real feedback mechanisms from "customers" (whether students, families, taxpayers, etc). Add to these problems the struggles of getting the boards from different towns to work effectively together, and the feelings of the Westminster Board moved unanimously against the idea of partnering for a new middle school in a permanent relation that would remove the choices enjoyed by many in our district. To the more mundane, and current: Lots going on at Westminster to try to improve academic results. Apparently spurred by not meeting AYP (according to public statements from teachers and the principal), the teachers are motivated to work together on improving student performance. While this test score scare seemed a motivator for action, it feels like the buy-in from the teachers to unified efforts to improve academic results is related to good leadership in presenting this problem to the teachers and letting them figure out and own the solutions they will pursue. The most concrete step is bringing in a common reading program (4 Blocks) across the school. Combined with the weirdly named Response to Intervention approach to looking at student results at the individual level and actually intervening to address struggles (!!!), there seems an increased attention to higher expectations for students and, most importantly, to actually working with each child towards their achievement and trying to keep individuals from falling through the cracks. The other "issue" is the boil water order despite our state mandated $100,000 new back up water system. Apparently, this new system isn't as flawless as promised upon first use. The hope is that the lingering bacteria problem is merely left over water and once all clear this time, in the future our back up system can assure we won't have bacteria problems in the future. We will see. The one other idea of note was a rare instance of openness of the central administration to publicly admitting the depth of problems in the district accounting practices that have plagued us for years. Instead of talking around the issue, we finally heard the problems are deep and carry over from long ago. Once this was acknowledged, the board was able to direct the administration to come up with a plan to solve, once and for all, the past problems so we can get this behind us. Although this will take some short term funding, it is widely felt among the board that we support the plan to address this (finally) according to the administration's recommendations. If this doesn't improve the business office situation, then the administration, and the board, deserves to be held accountable. Although it is a bit embarrassing to acknowledge failings, it is a lot better in my mind to be transparent and to make positive steps to address problems. No system is perfect and more openness about challenges allow the public to not only be informed, but to help solve problems for the good of all.