June 17th Board Meeting

Tonight was the board meeting that involved approving the final budget for the 2013-2014 school year and the approval of the tentative budget for 2014-2015 school year.  I have exchanged multiple e-mails with Rob Smith (the district business administrator) about several concerns I had with the budget.  Some of my concerns included the $42,000 we spend on dues for board members and the superintendent as well as drastic cuts to gifted and talented services as well as concurrent enrollment.  Here are the comments that I made during the budget public comment:

"I would like to thank those who are involved with creating and reviewing the budget.  Deciding how to meet the needs of over 73,000 students with half a billion dollars can be a daunting task.  Thank you for your dedication and efforts.  I also would like to commend the board on implementing a pay-as-you-go system.  To see projects like the new bus garage in Saratoga Springs and new Lehi high school paid for instead of bonding is phenomenal and I appreciate your stewardship over our taxpayer funds.

I am here to ask the board to allocate additional funds for Gifted and talented Services as well as Concurrent Enrollment.  When you look at best practices for teaching gifted children, ASD does a great job.  We have ALL magnet programs in elementary schools as well as a gifted/talented teaching endorsement available to teachers, both programs that many states fail to offer.  We are doing well, but we can do better.

We offer interventions for children who are struggling.  And we should.  But to truly show equity in education, we must provide an education for all children.  We need educational diversity.  If we are not challenging and encouraging all students, we are failing.  I have had the opportunity to evaluate PLCs over the last three years and our weakest response is to question #4, “How do we respond to students who already know the material?”  Too often, this question is left unanswered.

Once students hit junior high/middle school, our services drop off dramatically.  ALL is available only in 7^th and 8^th grades.  Of our 12 junior highs, only 5 offer science as part of the ALL program.  Less than half of our junior highs are challenging our brightest students in science at a time when we recognize the value of STEM.  Too often Flex Time is activities like movies and nail painting instead of open science labs.  Librarians cap the number of student they will accept in the library during Flex Time (sometimes with as few as 30 students), limiting access to materials for those who want to learn. 

On page 18 of the proposed budget, the revenue for Gifted and Talented has been cut from $426k to $371k.  I understand that this is due to estimates from the Utah State Office of Education.  I was told that expenses were reduced to meet revenues which means that we are cutting programs.  We are cutting this budget by 13%.  Concurrent Enrollment revenue projections fell from $760k to $419k meaning that we are cutting this program by a whopping 45% and AP revenue projections fell from $375k to $327k.  Money drives programs and without the board allocating funds to make up for decreased revenue, we will be cutting programs for our advanced students.

Even a year ago, we offered more options for advanced students.  Alpine Online offered multiple AP classes as well as foreign languages and other advanced science, math, and English classes.  When Alpine Online was revamped last year, it was refocused on grades kindergarten through 8^th and high school was changed to East Shore Online and was stripped of almost all advanced classes-no more AP classes, no more foreign languages.  When I inquired as to the dramatic change, I was told that the focus of Alpine Online had shifted to serve the roughly 1400 students who were just shy of needed credits for graduation.  I understand the value of helping students who need services-we provide programs like double dosing in younger grades and packets for high school students.  But we should not sacrifice giving our advanced students a phenomenal education.  We should not sacrifice one student’s success for another’s.

Whenever I am looking at the budget, I always ask, “How does this benefit students?”  If we are spending $100k to celebrate ASD’s 100^th birthday, then we should have funds to create programs that directly benefit students.  I would ask the board to reevalute the cuts to Concurrent Enrollment and Gifted and Talented Services so that we do not do a disservice to our students who can succeed beyond our wildest dreams if we only give them the tools to do so.

Thank You."
Two other individuals spoke, basically asking for the same things I did-taking out the $100,000 for the birthday celebration and putting more money into Gifted and Concurrent Enrollment.

When John Burton (the school board president) asked for a motion to approve the budget, Debbie made a motion to approve it and Scott seconded her motion.  During the discussion, Brian made a substitute motion to move $75,000 from the birthday celebration to Gifted and Talented Services.  During the discussion, Rob clarified that there would be money from this budget year to carry over to the next budget year for some of these services, but he would not know how much until after the fiscal year ended on June 30th.  Wendy also asked for clarification from Dr. Henshaw if my assessment of Alpine Online was correct and he confirmed that the school had been turned from academic achievement to a remediation school.  He stated that had occurred due to the need-the district is consumer-driven and has to look to what the greatest need is.  Wendy seconded Brian's motion, but they were the only ones to vote yes on the motion and it failed.  Wendy made a substitute motion to put $75,000 from the celebration, $42,000 from the professional dues, and another $25,000 into instruction to hire additional teachers.  She mentioned that Timberline and Mountain Ridge had a need for a second ALL class.  Brian seconded her motion, but only they voted in favor and it failed again.  Paula started to submit a substitute motion, but withdrew it.  The original motion of accepting the budget as is passed, with only Brian and Wendy opposing.

Sometimes it gets frustrating to go to board meetings and see little change.  It is frustrating-but this is the mantra I try and live by:

"I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything; but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do."  Edward Everett Hale

I hope I brought some things to light and I will continue to work to make ASD the best school district it can be!

Why I Am OK With Rejection

About a month ago, I interviewed with the board of directors for the Alpine Education Association (AEA).  I recently received a letter stating that they would not be endorsing me as a candidate.  And I am OK with that.  Let me explain why.
I stated at the beginning of the interview that I was a mom, not a politician and that I would answer their questions honestly and openly and not just tell them what they wanted to hear.  During the interview, I was asked my stance on Common Core and SAGE which I have been clear on (not a fan of either).  I do not support Common Core and opted my children (with the exception of my 9th grader) out of SAGE.  I was also asked what assistance I wanted from the teacher's union if I was endorsed by them.  And I think this next part is where I lost them.
I stated that while I would appreciate their endorsement, I would accept no money from them.  I stated that my ultimate responsibility was to the students of Alpine School District and that I did not want to ever hesitate or second guess a decision I felt was in the best interest of these students because an organization had written me a check.  I do not want to be beholden to any organization.  And I stand by that.  My goal is to fund this campaign entirely through my own money or possible individual donations, but I will not accept money from organizations.  I want to avoid even the appearance that anyone has me in their pocket.  One of my biggest frustrations with politics are individuals who only worry about what is in the best interest of their political party or their state instead of what is the best thing for our country.  I want to represent the children of Alpine School District as an advocate with integrity.

Transparency

trans·par·ent
a :  free from pretense or deceit :  frank

b :  easily detected or seen through :  obvious

c :  readily understood

d :  characterized by visibility or accessibility of information especially concerning business practices

One of the things that I believe in is transparency.  When I talk about transparency, I am talking about 2 things-fiscal transparency (how are my tax dollars and your tax dollars being spent) and the way in which the public is informed about our schools and decisions being made regarding them.  I think our district does a good job with transparency, but I think there are some improvements that could be made, particularly with the school board.
Let's address the fiscal transparency first.  I am a total nerd and love being able to scroll through the hundreds of pages of financial documents that are available each month with the school board documents.  But in that, there is a bit of a problem.  There are hundreds of pages of financial documents each month.  These documents are often posted the Thursday or Friday before school board meetings on the following Tuesday and I wonder if school board members have enough time to review hundreds of pages of documents.  Some of those pages are easy to scroll through-Kelly Services is the company we use for substitute teachers, so those pages are easy to say are legitimate and justified.  And there are lots of charges for things like pizza and fruits and veggies-vendors we use for school lunches.  There are also lots of checks for things like utilities.  All of those make sense.  It is the ones that are a little tough that I question.  I should probably forewarn you that I am cheap.  I like a good deal and am pretty conservative when it comes to money.  My husband's car is 15 years old and my minivan is 10.  And I wonder if we as a school district are always getting a good deal.  When we are dealing with a half a billion (yes, that is billion with a b) dollars annually to run ASD, it makes me wonder if we are always looking to pinch pennies.  I have been impressed with Rob Smith-he is the business administrator and does a great job.  But I don't think he has the time to look at every expense and know if we are getting the biggest bang for our buck.
Here are a few of  the items that caught my eye recently:

Foaming hand soap 17,018.88
LEHI CITY CORP/POLICE SALARY REIMB 34,000.00 34,000.00 


 If someone can explain to me why we are incurring those expenses, I am reasonable and can comprehend that.  Maybe it just costs $17,000 for foaming hand soap for 73,000 students.  I believe that the police department and school district split the salaries of police/resource officers in the high schools (which I am guessing is the above check to Lehi police).  OK, I get that.  My concern is that I am not sure we are questioning expenses at all.  Also, the way the annual budget is created is difficult to interpret-money drives programs, but when large amounts of money are put in general accounts, it is difficult to examine how much we are investing and in what.
I would love to see a review panel of a few parent volunteers each month go through those expenses-a set of fresh eyes to see if there are ways in which we can save money.  Do you have other ideas in which we can increase fiscal transparency?
The second aspect of transparency is getting the facts in an "easily detected" way.  At a recent board meeting, Dr. Henshaw talked about some concerns with enrollment numbers in high school, particularly a drop off in students from the October enrollment numbers to the April enrollment numbers in 3 high schools.  There was talk about working with the schools to see if this was due to kids moving out or if there was an issue with kids dropping out.  Dr. Henshaw stated that these statistics could effect our graduation rates and that the important thing was that behind every number there was a student.  Agreed.  Here is where I have the issue-there was talk about "those three schools" and "that one school", but I felt the board was talking about an issue while withholding information from the public and those attending the meeting.  I went home and looked through the notes.  You can click on the link below to look for yourself-it is one page 410.
http://board.alpineschools.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Meeting-Documents.pdf
I find it hard to feel like discussions are "readily understood" when the board fails to articulate what schools are being discussed.  And to clear things up, here are the numbers.  Lehi High School lost 129 students from October 1st to April 30th, American Fork High lost 88 and Westlake lost 65. Those students could have moved out of the district, gone to charter schools, etc.  My frustration is that the superintendent and board members were unwilling to just state the names and numbers.
I recently was interested in comparing a couple of high schools in the district.  I first got on the ASD website and then the individual school websites to see if I was able to compare.  I scoured Stakeholder's Reports and had little success.  I ended up calling the schools directly who were unable to give me information like that percentage of students passing the AP test and the average ACT score as well as the percentage of students accessing remediation packets to make up lost credits.  I had to call the district and the numbers were significantly different.  If the district believes in transparency, I think that school info should be posted on the website so that parents can do a side by side comparison of schools.  Do you have thoughts about how we can make information about schools more readily available to parents?