Other March 12 Board Meeting Observations

There was such a full agenda at last night's board meeting and it really ended up to be an emotionally draining 3 hours. The two big items were the 4K presentation and the CAC recommendations based on the community survey results. I was part of the 4KIC and proud to have been part of the most professional, thorough treatment of any new program research I've seen to date. Kudos to Paula Landers, facilitator extraordinaire!

The CAC recommendations for referendum were a small section of the list. I was amused to see the BOE suddenly take up the drumbeat for creating a strategic plan and Jerry jump right onto that bandwagon. I've been advocating, cajoling, pushing, you name it, I've tried it, for this august body to do this for YEARS. At least they're talking about doing it now.

Other recommendations the CAC made was to implement 4K (outside of referendum), to consider renovation/replacement of the MS no later than the 18-19 school year. Clarification of that point was asked for by the BOE because the HS won't be paid off until 2020. The answer was that the planning should begin at that time.

The new principal contracts were approved, with Joanie Dobbs as the new Levi Leonard principal and Jason Knott from Edgerton at the Middle School. Mr. Cashore's contract was revised to separate out his AD stipend from his AP duties and change his post retirement benefits to align with current administrator contracts, adding costs to be placed into an HRA to "catch him up" in this regard.

Several policies were approved as well, with further discussion about 521.1 Board Staff Communication policy in which Jerry indicated that the intent was to preserve the chain of command and not to discourage staff from contacting individual board members with concerns. That was important to the passage of this policy.

An interesting conversation came about when Jerry was discussing using part of last year's fund surplus for salary and benefit increases. It wasn't until the motion was made that I realized that this was for this school year and would be retroactive to last July 1. It comes from the $165,000 surplus in the 12-13 budget. Going forward, this change could have implications and the BOE encouraged the compensation committee to come back soon with next year's recommendations. Folded on top of this discussion, muddying the waters from my perspective, is the concept of one time stipend awards to staff. The reasoning was that a percent increase of a lower salary is naturally lower and the stipends would help equalize that. Rewarding staff for all their hard work was at the heart of the discussion.

Teaching staff were strongly represented to advocate for a choice of 20 or 24 pay periods. It was a very emotional discussion fraught with discussions of the survey that was done, who it was sent to, how it was presented, the history as to how it came about in the first place, some reference to focus groups that were never held and general unrest. 77% of the staff surveys returned supported 24 pay periods. The cost for maintaining two pay schedules has been variously reported and ranges from $10-50K in addition to the current wages in the district office. The discussion included how closely related student achievement was with school climate, and did the board not believe that increasing achievement was worth this additional cost? The history lesson included aspects of the discussion during handbook meetings that were supposed to communicate the change to staff but apparently did not. The process was put into place just last July and the BOE voted 4-3 to keep 20 pay periods this year and noted that the handbook change process forms were in the handbook and that the next version of that would be addressed in June. God bless her, Mrs. Oswald, awesome MS teacher, filled one out on the spot and handed it to Jerry right in the middle of the meeting! I understand both sides of this question and why the board voted as they did. It's unfortunate that this has taken so much of the board's energy when the question was asked and answered last year. The entire debacle highlights the abysmal state of communications in all areas of our district, not just the board. It is imperative to repair this problem if the ECSD wishes to have a positive staff.

Thanks to the BOE for clarifying that the resignation of the 0.5 FTE Gifted and Talented Resource Teacher Mark Simonson at JCMM (he was only on a one year contract) doesn't signify the demise of the program at the MS. The 0.5 position will be replaced with a 1.0 FTE next year! It was a joyous moment for me to behold.

That hits most of the high points. I did speak about Senior Projects, but will write a separate post on that later. Signing off from Hammann Campaign Headquarters!

Link to Tonight's Board Meeting Packet

Here's the link that includes both agenda and packet contents for the school board meeting tonight at 6. Lots of information is included. A third reading of policy that has flown under my radar until now (so sorry) is Policy 521.1, wherein all communications between board and staff are to be through the conduit of the District Administrator. I am appalled at this and now understand where the staff got the idea they weren't to talk to board members at all. Unbelievable. Come early to snag a good seat!

Melissa

http://www.ecsdnet.org/documents/Board%20Meetings/2013-2014/March/March%2012%20board%20packet.pdf

Board Meeting Highlights

Click on the post to see the agenda listing.

I got to the meeting at about 6:10, expecting the executive session to just be finishing and they were already finishing up with the Student learning results/year end goals, Item 7B on the agenda. Must have figured out those salaries and benefits a lot faster than I usually do.

Tina and Eric were missing from the meeting, but apparently Tina had a conflict and planned to arrive later.

I was sorry I missed the student learning results discussion, but there is a good summary in the administrators reports posted on the website. I'll write another post about that at a later date and include a link to the reports. It's 23 pages long, so be prepared.

Anyway, the business action items were soon underway. Right off the bat, they were talking about refinancing part of the debt, $1.14 million to be exact. The powers that be have restructured the ratings for schools to be similar to that of other businesses. The highest rating that can be achieved is AAA (Moody's). ECSD rating has been upgraded from A-3 to A-1. Click on the link below for a more thorough discussion of this rating system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bond_credit_rating

It seemed like there was a lot of work put into this re-fi, reducing our effective interest rate from 5.25% to 4.46% for the life of the bond (2021). Overall savings to the district over the life of the loan will be $31,829. While this seems a tad paltry considering the dollars we're talking about here, it's a new teacher salary (or so), not including benefits and perks. Well worth doing. AND it would not have been possible without the diligence and foresight of the board for developing, implementing AND FOLLOWING the fund balance policy 662.3 in 2007. Moody's specifically stated that efforts to increase our fund balance in recent years have improved our bond rating.

Which brings us back to the last post: Don't plan to spend more than you expect to earn in revenue. Continued deficit budgeting will raid this balance and diminish the district bond rating. Deb mentioned that since the meeting June 28th, the projected budget figures have improved by about $50,000 (I don't have the specifics). This brings the deficit down from about $136K to a mere $86K. I erroneously stated that they planned to spend only $50K more than they planned to get in revenue next year. The original plan in December was to spend nearly $200K more than they got in revenue. By June 28th, they had tweaked the budget to get that figure down to about $136K and now the deficit stands at about $86K. I reiterate: Planning to raid the fund balance every year to balance the budget is not a fiscally sound plan. It will come back to haunt the district and the taxpayers.

Next, they tackled the modified bell schedule at the high school, which was passed with Michael Pierick emphasizing that this must have dedicated staff to supervise bus students with no other way to school on those days.

The controversial discussion was about the Administrators Salary and Benefits changes approvals. This topic came up in the program based budgeting (PBB) process in February. It was suggested that the Administrators and the non-represented staff begin to contribute 5% to their Health Plans (or get 5% less cash in lieu, as the case may be). Apparently there was a 4-5% salary increase originally planned in the December budget with the standard district pay all health plans. By reducing the raises to 2-3% (2 for the Administrators, 3 for the admin. assists.) and requiring a 5% contribution to health plans, this ends up looking like a 16K savings from the original budget. That's how the District Office rearranged money to make it look like they reduced their budget to meet their 4% reduction plan. But do not be deceived! This still is costing the district 22K, which I emphasized when the plan was originally proposed during PBB. "But it's a savings from the original budget!" ARRGH! God save me from people who think like this.

Anyway, Dennis Hatfield echoed my own thoughts about this Houdini rearrangement of funds in this horrible economy. He thought everything should be frozen as it stands, with no salary increase and no 5% Health plan contribution. His point was that Doyle has asked all govt employees to make 10% cuts and even though he said schools were exempt, if there's no money, there's no money. Who knows what the per pupil reimbursement will be next year? Now is not the time for experiments, no matter how good intentioned.

I tend to agree with Dennis. I was even more Draconian than him. Give them no raise, ask for the 5% contribution. I see no purpose to ask for a 5% Health plan contribution and turn around and give them the money to pay for it. Bleed along with the rest of us, why don't you? Other ideas to float would be: "Whatever the school district is paying for your health plans now will be frozen for the foreseeable future. If the cost increases, you will incur that increase yourself. Your raises will not be considered any differently than before. We will not make sure the raise you get will cover whatever future increases may be seen for your health insurance." I was happy to see somebody carrying on the torch of rationality in this discussion in my absence. Also nice to see somebody else be the rabble rouser! Sadly, nobody else agreed with Dennis and the vote was 4-1 for the proposed changes. At least there is now an example of health plan contribution for future reference in the district.

The approval of the proposals for a HS Senior Project graduation requirement beginning with the class of 2014 was a lively animated discussion, with Nancy Hurley, Dennis Hatfield and Tina Rossmiller (who showed up just in time to discuss it!) thoroughly taking the administration to task for not answering the very specific questions and concerns they made clear at the June 28th meeting on the proposals. Specific questions include funding sources, grading rubrics, what happens if a kid doesn't fulfill the requirements, how can you make sure this is the kids' work and not their parents, how can it be equalized between students with means and students with no means, and many questions along those lines. The excuse was that they couldn't get the committee together because it was summer. Well, the board's message was loud and clear: Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on ours. That has been one of my favorite all time quotes since I heard it first as a young professional in my first job. It is universally applicable to any number of situations. The vote was 5-1 (Kathy Swanson) to table the topic until the questions and concerns of the board are addressed specifically in the proposal. Yay board.

All the other action items passed with unanimous votes.

The next meeting will be July 26th at 5:30 for the committee of the whole. The agenda isn't posted yet; I'll put it here when I see it.

Now wasn't that a more exciting read than those boring minutes you read on the school website? Not to mention more timely. But, nobody has to approve my version of the minutes.

Topics for future posts include student learning summary/district goals; Janesville School District has a summer musical, why don't we try this idea? Musings from a "recovering board member"; If you have any ideas regarding topics you'd like to see addressed here, please email me.

Mark your calendar: "Regular School Board Meeting" July 12 at 5:30 in the new Board Room and Training Center

NOTICE: Amended post complete with agenda for July 12th. Just click on the link.

I thought the new Board Meeting location (Mrs. Feeney's old classroom) was just for "committee meetings of the whole," but it looks like it's a permanent move to this site. I made it to the last meeting just in time for a discussion of policy and the room was brutally hot and stifling at 7:40pm. This was on a relatively cool (70s) day on which I was shivering after water aerobics class. I was unprepared because I wore capris and three quarter length sleeves because I was so cold after swimming. WHEW! I should have known better because one of our kids had Mrs. Feeney for a teacher and she often complained about how hot it was in there. So if you plan to attend, dress for the sweltering conditions and bring a water bottle!

Action items this month include approval of administrative and non-represented contracts, the new late start day twice a month at the high school, several policies, bond and much more. Discussion items include student achievement results/end of year goals and the second reading of several policies including policy 457 Suicide Prevention/Intervention as well as its companion policy 457.1. No date has been placed on the agenda for the Annual Meeting. It is often the last Monday in August, but may change because that should be the committee of the whole date now. We may not know that date until the July 26 committee meeting.

I'll keep you posted on that date. Remember, it's a time when every citizen of Evansville has a vote on the mill rate. Attend if you can!

M