A Marathon Meeting with Massive Amounts of Missing Information and Misguided Motions!!

The March 10, 2008 Public Hearing for the SAGE program began at 6:00 p.m. and it was PACKED with teachers, parents and other interested parties. People who wished to speak had to sign up ahead of time. Pres. O'Brien opened the 1 hour meeting with the comment that 9 people had signed up and therefore each person had 3 minutes to speak (?!?!) No one in the audience knew where he came up with that number! I was not able to get all the names of people or where they were from but ALL spoke with passion and eloquence about the benefits of having smaller class sizes at the beginning of children's education, about the data supporting student achievement results with smaller class sizes and about the benefits of early intervention for students that are "at risk" which is the case in the 4 schools that were discussed. I also stood up and spoke with my usual shaky voice and extended my analogy that so many proposals coming from Administration are nothing more than "changing deck chairs on the Titanic." But the current proposal, I believe, is the equivalent of chopping up the lifeboats into firewood and toasting marshmallows on the deck as the ship sinks.

At 6:45 p.m. when Pres. O'Brien had read of the list of people requesting to speak he quickly proposed closing the Public Hearing but there was one more person who arrived late and did not sign up ahead of time. It was clear that he was not inclined to allow her to speak but others on the board pointed out that she had her hand raised and was requesting time to give input. Again: RIDICULOUS! That a Public Hearing is held from 6 to 7 p.m. before the board meeting and the Pres. of the Board does not even have the courtesy to make a simple statement when 15 minutes are remaining that if others wish to comment that they are invited to do so.

Then at 7:00 p.m. the Regular BOE Meeting was called to order. A few routine announcements and then G. Butler gave his report that the BOE was looking for Student Representatives for next year. Also Flynn Elementary won an award for being a "green" building and Jessica Doyle would be presenting an award. It is the first "green" building in the entire state to receive such an award. Also, the ECASD will allow up to 10 foreign exchange students at each high school next year after none were allowed last year due to budget reductions. Last year's cancellation of this valuable program was ridiculous and, again, done with no foresight or planning or evaluation of the benefits of having foreign students in our schools and community. Then there was a presentation by the Longfellow principal about their partnership with UWEC student volunteers which was very informative and seemed to be a wonderful example of the best kind of collaboration.

During the Public Input for the meeting a teacher at Longfellow stood up and bravely said that she did not feel the need to speak at the Public Hearing about SAGE because she had thought that she was not affected by the proposed changes. However she came to realize that so many of the students at Longfellow and the other SAGE schools are so transient that many times they will move from one of the schools to another during the course of the year and having a small class to help them through such transitions is so beneficial for students and teachers who help them through so many transitions.

Also during the Public Input, Paul Kuehn, who is a parent with the Memorial HS Jazz boosters asked the Board to consider funding the Jazz Band's trip to the Essentially Ellington Competition in NYC at the same level that athletic teams are funded when they go to state competitions. The Memorial band has been selected 5 times in 10 years and has competed against some of the top private schools in North America. And, after all, Music is part of the academic curriculum rather than athletics which are extra-curricular.

The Financial Report was approved with O'Brien and Faanes abstaining due to spousal employment.

Budget Adjustments were approved with Comm. Bollinger commenting that these were due to gifts to the district and thanking the community for support.

At some point Dr. Leary gave his report which included announcements about a Board Governance Work Session on 4-17-08 to include the newly elected board members as well. I digress: Almost exactly a year ago all BOE members attended an EXCELLENT work session about Board Governance to help them use it to manage and plan the work of the Board. Unfortunately, not one iota of information presented a year ago was used by Pres. O'Brien to manage the work of the Board in the last year. Therefore we have gone another year without Strategic Planning, without Mission-driven decision-making, and without setting a single priority (other than attendance, I guess) for the Board itself or for the district as a whole. The whole debacle reminds me of my son in 5th grade struggling with keeping his schoolwork organized and planning ahead for tests and due dates and trying to remember to use his Planner calendar to write things down in order to be prepared. (By the way, my son is now a successful college student.)

Also, on 4-7-08 from 5 to 6:45 there will be another Work Session to try to wrap up a few of the loose ends that have just fallen by the wayside like Technology Planning, the Community Survey, Boundary and Facility Planning, etc... Comm. Cummins also mentioned that on 4/15/08 there is a regional meeting in Elk Mound for new Board members and other districts actually send a delegation but the ECASD has not done this in the past. (In EC our attitude seems to be: "What could we possibly learn from any of these other people?")

Comm. Cummins also said that she would like to look at the recommendations coming from the Little Red Study Committee and plan to begin work on them as well. Accountability for decisions!

The Regular Meeting adjourned and then the Committee Meeting was called to order.

The first item on the Agenda was a discussion of the Non-Affiliated Staff and Administrator's Salary Agreements. The recommendation was for a 2% total package (salaries and benefits) for 2007-08 and a 2.5% increase for 2008-09. This includes a move to a Health Reimbursement Account (HRA) with a high deductible and that there would be no Other Post Employment Benefits (OPEB) offered to non-affiliated personnel hired after 7-1-08. NOTE: This group of employees include all the Administrators, Principals, Deans of Students, Food Service Director, etc... everyone who is not covered by one of the other unions like the teachers, the custodians, the clerical staff, etc...

This was a fairly complicated discussion and I can't say that I followed every piece of it, but a few things that were clear:

1. There was absolutely NO $ information available about what the effect of the compensation increases would be NOR any $ information available about what the estimated savings from the change to an HRA would be!?!? Comm. Wogahn said multiple times: "This is BIG! This will be my LEGACY to the district! This is HUGE!" Mr. Kling or Vandewater said that this year there was an expected contractual 17% increase in Health Care costs but with the HRA they expect a 23% decrease. That is great but what is the amount? Why isn't that savings being factored into the Budget recommendations that were discussed later in the meeting?
2. Questions by Comm. Cummins indicated that this has been a discussion point in Closed Session for 4 months and yet only 40 of the 115 personnel affected by this proposal were included in the discussions. There were extremely weak responses from Administration about how difficult it would have been to include the other 75. How about hold a meeting or 2 and invite them to attend and get the information? Send an e-mail to them with the information? I dunno.
3. The change in OPED conveniently grandfathers in all of the current group and excludes all future hires. Will this affect the district's ability to recruit talented Administrators in the future? What is reasonable in the current market for these jobs? Saving money is great but if it hurts us in the future what have we gained?
4. Comm. Kneer thanked the Administrators for "taking less" and Comm. Bollinger indicated that he would support this compensation increase in spite of proposing a "Salary Freeze" for all employees previously. I'm sorry, Mr. Bollinger, but you do not get to grab headlines for your brash proposal to freeze school district salaries and then, 8 months later, ride in on your white horse and support Administration raises. Again, what is the financial effect of this proposal in future years? Is it a long term savings? Great! Is it harmful to future recruiting efforts? Boo!

Next was the discussion about the SAGE waiver proposal. Chris Dimock and G. Butler and F. Weissenburger opened the discussion with a presentation about the costs of the SAGE program in the district. This involved 3 different spreadsheets with 3 different scenarios for SAGE funding in 12 elementary schools. Each spreadsheet had 7 columns of information for all the scenarios: Keeping SAGE in 8 schools, keeping SAGE in 4 schools and eliminating SAGE in all schools. This was a perfect example of "The Gregg Butler Smoke and Mirrors Show"!

The BOE had asked at the last meeting one simple question: "What is the cost of keeping SAGE in the 4 schools that they proposed eliminating it in?" But instead of giving the BOE what they asked for, Dr. Butler gives them the firehose equivalent of non-essential information about 12 schools and then throws in a completely useless and irrelevant sidebar about Title 11 funding. BOE members were clearly annoyed by the unnecessary complications to a simple decision. Thank God Comm. Faanes just cut to the quick and asked outright: "So we need to spend $400,000 to get $800,000 in SAGE funding?" "Yes."

Comm. Kneer exclaimed that she just didn't know "How are we going to afford all of this?" to which Comm. Faanes calmly replied, "It's a 3 to 1 bet, Mary" which is guaranteed to pay off! If there was ever a definition of a "No Brainer" this has got to be it. Comm. Bollinger (again, speaking completely opposite of his previous statements that he is OPPOSED to using Fund Balance) made a motion to use up to $400,000 of Fund balance for years 2007-08 and 2008-09 to continue funding SAGE in all 8 schools until a full study of boundaries and facilities can be done. I agree with the motion but I think that Comm. Bollinger is going to lose his credibility as a fiscal conservative if he continues with this kind of "flip-flopping".

Comm. Wogahn commented that the district needs a complete review of buildings and staffing since the other 4 non-SAGE schools (Meadowview, Robbins, Putnam and Manz) will have pupil:teacher ratios of 28:1 and 8 SAGE schools have 15:1. YUP. Comm. Cummins reminded him that that was the effect of the budget reductions last year that cut teachers and increased class sizes at all levels.

There was UNANIMOUS support for the motion to use FB for SAGE programming in the 8 schools.

Another Item for Action was approving the Open Enrollment applications for next year with extra explanations about what it all meant for funding for "home" districts and the "receiving" district. Not sure if I got the nomenclature right on this one.

Another discussion about the Gifting Policy but it was accepted with the need to be cautious about commercial advertising in schools and weird donor intents that might not be consistent with district or curriculum policies.

Finally, a discussion about the 1st Draft of the 2008-09 Budget Reductions. Dan V. presented and basically said that due to the Revenue Limits, these cuts will continue indefinitely, "much like the Energizer Bunny" until funding formulas at the state level change. His summary of $2.1 million in proposed cuts was the following:

$500,000 saved by closing Little Red, $320,000 saved by 5 fewer classroom teachers due to declining enrollment, $580,000 saved due to transferring middle school athletics to Fund 80, $40,000 new revenue for advertising on the district website, $50,000 saved in substitute teachers by restructuring staff development days, $31,000 saved by discontinuing (shared with UWEC) grant writer position, $540,000 saved by discontinuing 2 Central Office support staff and 3 secondary school support staff and 5 certified program support staff, and $50,000 reduced from high school athletics.

My comments:

1. Where are the big savings related to the HRA change in the non-affiliated staff contract?
2. my experience in other organizations is that a Grant Writer should be paying for his/her own position 3 times over with grant revenue. Why are we cutting our noses off here to get grant funding?
3. my bias is showing but, $50,000 out of Athletics seems pretty small considering what has come out of classrooms. Why doesn't the district take the bid, bold and money saving initiative to move huge chunks of Athletic funding to the community? Until we take the step of cutting district funds, we cannot expect the community to step in and pick up the slack.
4. Comm. Craig again brought up the need to get back to the Comprehensive Community Planning (CCP) resolution of Feb. 19, 2007 (15 months ago!) to guide cuts. She said that maybe the Fund Balance option should be considered since there is no CCP in place yet. She said that all these proposed cuts just seem to be random ideas that are NOT GOOD POLICY. I could not agree more.

Pres. O'Brien's response to this was unbelievable. He actually said that he went back and re-read the motion for the CCP and thought there was a "misunderstanding" about what it was meant to do! He said that the School Board members "are elected to make decisions" and he reiterated this silliness in the newspaper last week. Comm. Craig asked him "Then what was the point of the motion to do Comprehensive Community Planning?" O'Brien's response was that he was not negating that motion, but that it was more of a "moral thing" to engage the community. WHAT??? He and his failed year of leadership stumbling around rudderless are so indicative of the dysfunction that our district has suffered under for so many years.

Bring on change! New Superintendent! Another new board member! A new Deputy Superintendent! A Strategic Plan! Meaningful Community Engagement! It simply can't happen soon enough.

WHOA! Quite the meeting. I think I got home after 10:00 p.m. and the BOE members had a Closed Session even later.