I am very alarmed that the Comprehensive Community Planning (CCP) Process is starting out with the usual ECASD approach of the four "I's": Insulated, Isolated , Inadequate and Impulsively. Just the name of the group indicates that this should be broad based, strategic, and inclusive and we have just the opposite! Discussion about the formation of this effort began in February, and today is June 20th. Please see below the rather lengthy but important excerpt from Minutes of the Feb. BOE Meeting about the expectations of this process:
"Carol Craig drafted a proposal for the Board’s consideration. She said the purpose of the proposal was to make sure the public understands that the referendum is not a solution to the district’s long-term financial issues. She believed that the solution would come in the form of a long-range community plan to determine what services should be offered and what priorities should be set. She read a draft of a motion she developed.
The Board would direct administration to immediately begin developing strategies to complete a comprehensive community planning process for the purpose of determining the community-wide consensus regarding short and long range educational priorities for the ECASD. This plan will serve as a blueprint for future budgetary decisions related to, but not limited to, operational, facilities, and capital expenses/reductions. A draft of the strategies for this comprehensive community planning proposal should be submitted for the BOE review by July 1, 2007, with an implementation target date of September 1, 2007.
Dr. Klaus said he hoped a committee could be put together in the spring so that an outline of the plan could be presented by July 1st.
The Board talked about how it would achieve community-wide consensus. It was stated that the purpose would be to promote community involvement in the process. Com. Craig said she would want a plan in place to begin community engagement to determine educational priorities in the community.
The Board discussed bringing in an outside facilitator to lead the group. Com. Evans pointed out that WASB assisted with the last strategic plan and did a very good job.
Com. Kneer urged the Board to involve teachers in the process as well. Com. Craig said she envisioned including teachers, senior citizens, and community members.
Citizen Terri Stanley said it was important to establish the process and have the community involved every step of the way.
Com. O’Brien suggested changing the wording of the motion to read, “…complete a comprehensive community planning process for the purpose of developing community-wide consensus…”
Com. Craig moved, seconded by Com. Wogahn, to direct administration to immediately begin developing strategies to complete a comprehensive community planning process for the purpose of developing community-wide consensus regarding short and long range educational priorities for the ECASD. This plan will serve as a blueprint for future budgetary decisions related to, but not limited to, operational, facilities, and capital expenses/
reductions. A draft of the strategies for this comprehensive community planning proposal should be submitted for the BOE review by July 1, 2007, with an implementation target date of September 1, 2007. Carried by unanimous roll call vote.
Superintendent Klaus said he believed the group should make the public aware of reductions already in place and to ask for priorities for reductions in the future."
Needless to say NONE OF THIS HAS HAPPENED. Teachers are not involved. Community members are not involved. Senior Citizens are not involved. A committee has not been formed. Nothing happened for months. Then I asked at the May 21st BOE meeting why nothing is happening. Then something started happening but, as usual, it was completely behind the scenes and out of the sight of anybody but the Administrators and some BOE members. At the June 18th BOE meeting they announced that there would be a Closed Session to interview candidates to help in the CCP but it was confidential because it involved "negotiations."
Can anyone tell me how an organization the size of the ECASD could possibly go from NOTHING on May 21st to "negotiations" with finalists scheduled by June 18th?!?! Again, this is a completely crazy process that will not give us a good result. To have only a couple of individuals making all of the preliminary decisions about this incredibly important process is guaranteed to lead to an expensive, ill advised, time-consuming, waste of community goodwill that leaves the ECASD in worse shape than before.
Please see below a link to the American Planning Association website about how to choose a planner.
http://www.planning.org/consultant/choose.htm
This website highlights the need to PLAN for planning including defining what our goals for the project are, setting a budget and timetable, defining the roles of the consultant and other members of the team (Administrators, BOE members, teachers, other staff, community members, etc...) Other steps include soliciting candidates using an RFQ (Request for Qualifications) which would tell us WHY they are qualified to help us and an RFP (Request for Proposal) which tells us HOW they propose to help us achieve our goals. Also "deliverables" must be identified by both parties to assure that at the end of the process we have precisely what we asked for and they know exactly what they are expected to do to satisfy the contract. Finally, what are the selection criteria identified by us to hire a planner that will meet our goals for this project? This is normally an objective score (rubric) which ranks qualities that we value and applies them mathematically across candidates.
I will follow this posting with a Comment that includes a copy of an e-mail I sent to BOE members and Administrators asking for this information. I have had no response from them.
This process is vitally important for the future of our district. More voices are needed to ask for participation or we will just be chasing down one more pointless and misguided folly led by inexperienced Administrators with poor BOE oversight.
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This is an e-mail I sent to the BOE Members and ECASD Administrators about my concerns.
Maria
Dear Administrators and BOE Members,
I must confess my total dismay at your decision to have interviews
with potential Comprehensive Community Planning (CCP) consultants
held during a closed session. The irony of beginning a process that
is intended to unite the community and the ECASD in a joint planning
process without including the community would actually be funny if it
was not truly sad. I humbly ask you to reconsider this decision and
take a couple of huge steps backwards to get this crucial effort
started on firm footing.
If you choose not to re-examine the Closed Session process, I would
like to request the following information. I am assuming that none of
this information is "confidential" or "proprietary" and that it is
available to the public to review and suggest questions for the
interviewing session. This information can be sent to me in
electronic form (highly desirable) or I can pick up copies at the
ECASD offices.
1. The definition of the CCP process that was prepared by the ECASD in
the solicitation of candidates. This would include the scope and
goals of the project, the respective roles of the planning team (i.e.,
the consultant, ECASD administrators, teachers, BOE members, community
members and others), the budget, the timetable for the project and the
expected "deliverables" from the planning process.
2. A copy of the RFQ and/or RFP.
3. The selection criteria.
4. The names of the planning consulting firms being interviewed and
their answers to the RFQ/RFP.
Since the interviews are just one week from today, I am hoping that
this information will be available to review in the next day or so.
Again, reconsideration of the decision to exclude the community from
the Comprehensive Community Planning process from the start would be
the best way to start this important process.
Sincerely,
Maria Henly
Here is the response I received from Sup. Klaus in reference to my request for information aout the CCP Process and the June 26 Closed Session interviews with planning candidates.
We are in the Twilight Zone now.
I will follow with another comment with my response back to him and the rest of the BOE and Administrators.
From William Klaus, Superintendent of Schools~~
Ms. Henly:
The sessions with the planning consultants will be held in closed
session under 19.85 (1)(e) as they are considered competitive
bargaining. Additionally this is also a process for the Board to learn
what type of activities the consultants could suggest and lead, thus
there is not specific RFP guidelines. General information to the
consultants was based on the following tasks: 1) How can the district
better engage the public to help set priorities for the instruction of
students and all the areas that support this instruction? 2) What are
the financial priorities of the district and what are the long-term
goals for funding? 3) How can the public best be involved (engaged) with
the district both short and long term.
I have attached the one-page summary of the organizations. If you would
like the complete packet given to the Board of Education, it will cost
.25 per page at 269 pages plus the time to copy the documents. I have
also attached the Board Policy dealing with these costs. The information
we will provide will not include the National Civic League proposal as
it contains bid numbers.
If you would like a copy of these documents, please contact me and we
can make arrangements for payment. Thank you for your continued interest
in planning.
Sincerely,
William Klaus
Superintendent
My response to the BOE and ECASD Administration regarding the need to have interviews with planning consultants in closed session:
Dear BOE Members and Administrators,
Please see below the ridiculous response I received from Supt. Klaus
about my request for information about the CCP Process. There is
absolutely NO TRUTH to Mr. O'Brien's and Klaus' statement that the
session with the planning candidates is closed because it is
"negotiations." It is clear from Klaus' response that basically NO
WORK AT ALL has been done to prepare to undertake the CCP Process and
the June 26th meeting is nothing more than "going fishing" for
information on how to get started. Neither the the ECASD
Administration nor the BOE have made any effort to prepare for this
complex, expensive and vital task on behalf of our district.
Please also see below Klaus' response a copy of the minutes from the
Feb. 15th BOE meeting about the BOE expectations for this process. (This was included in the original post.) No
committee was formed. No information was solicited from WASB. No
teachers are involved. No community participation was solicited and
now you are seeking to keep the community out using the completely
bogus argument that you are in "negotiations."
You have not even defined the project. How can you negotiate with
possible planners when you haven't even defined what you are asking of
them. You have not done a fraction of the work needed to even begin
to put together an RFQ or an RFP for this process. You have not
defined the selection criteria because you don't even know what you
are asking for.
This is beyond outrageous. You don't want the public to be involved
in the June 26th meeting because it would be a total embarrassment for
the community to realize that YOU ARE NOT DOING YOUR JOBS.
Several of us are beyond alarmed about this and will be seeking
alternatives to your response in the next few days.
Maria Henly
I took a quick look at the statute 18.95 and to my layman's eye it doesn't look
like it _requires_ a closed session, but
rather the board is _allowed_ to go in
to closed session for some items.
We're going to find out the details of
whichever vendor is selected eventually,
or I assume we will. This is public
money being spent so I assume that the
full cost will have to be disclosed, as
well as the contract signed.
Can someone fill me (and the rest of us)
as to when closed meetings for
competitive bidding are legally
required?
On a related note, there's a post here
regarding confidential negotiations
between the teacher's union and the
district. I understand that in some
cases you would want that, but not
necessarily. I as a tax payer am
interested in the outcome of this
negotiation. Why can't I watch?
To EC Watcher and others:
I am convinced from my reading of the Open Meetings Laws that this closed session DOES NOT meet the criteria to close the meeting to the public. I believe that the BOE members have crossed the legal line if they (or Pres. O'Brien) continue to insist that "negotiations" are the reason compelling closing this session to the public.
From Klaus' response to me it is clear that the meeting is basically to pick the brains of some of these consultants who, of course, would love the business.
Klaus refers to 269 pages of material that the BOE is reviewing during the session. I would bet my bottom dollar that almost NONE of it has any specifics about any "bids" for this project since it has not been defined at all. I plan to make a visit to the Board office (save myself the copying fee) and review the 269 pages of information. Again, I am convinced that it is 269 pages of generic marketing material that these firms have put together.
PLEASE go to the Post titled Open Meetings Laws and follow the link to review the OML Guidelines and read when closing a session to the public is allowed. There are only 13 very specific reasons for not allowing the public to see the functioning of elected officials and these exceptions are to be interpreted "strictly" NOT broadly.
PLEASE read the negotiations exception. In my opinion, there is no possible way that interviewing planning consultants in general ways qualifies at all. Even if it did, as a taxpayer I would be furious that the ECASD Administration and BOE is at the "negotiations" stage of this when we have not even defined our own goals for the process.
The OML guide specifically says that if there is any question about whether or not a session should be open or closed, officials are advised to err on the side of openness.
This is serious stuff. It deserves people's attention.
Maria
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