School Board Candidate Questions - Their Answers

...well...half the candidates responded, anyway.

Frankly, it came as no surprise to us that we didn't receive responses from Caren Diedrich or Jim (Seabass) McCourt. Ms. Diedrich even said quite clearly recently (on a Talk of the Town candidates segment) that "we" [the board] ignore certain community members. She also says she doesn't "do e-mail", yet we caught her publicly state that she sent e-mails to state representatives regarding school funding. Hmmmm.

As for Seabass....well...he's probably busy setting up his business. Heck...if I guy cant even make more than 2-3 out of every 4 school board meetings, how can we expect him to have time for trivial matters such as this...right?

YOU be the judge, people. And judge with your vote on April 6th. Which candidate(s) will best serve us --you--- for the next 3 years?

Besides...we figured you needed a break from all the girls basketball sappy crappy.

2010 SP-EYE School Board Candidate Questions and Answers

1. Please assign the school board a letter grade for its efforts in Community Engagement. Discuss the rationale for awarding that grade.

Al Slane: Grade: B-

The Board has made some strides since having the engagement task force, but has failed to make enough progress on the items that we took away from that process. I think we have done a better job of getting and listening to input as well as getting information out to the public. One issue is people are busy and don't tend to get involved in yet another activity unless there is an issue that directly affects them. When we talk about changing class size or dropping HS electives, people come out of the woodwork. One good thing that came from last years annual meeting and the cost cutting, is more people realize they need to be involved and be informed about what is going on. The Board can do a better job of keeping everyone involved.

John Welke: Grade: D
The only community engagement activity the board is involved with are reactive activities such as returning phone calls and emails and listening to district residents concerns at school board meetings. I believe that the board knows that this is a weakness for because in 2008 they authorized a group of community members to form the Community Engagement Task Force (CETF). The CETF was charged with making recommendations to the board on ways to increase the communication between the school board and the community. After a number of meetings and brain storming sessions the CETF made 6 recommendations to the school board that they thought would increase communication between the board and the community. Unfortunately, to date the board has not implemented any of the 6 recommendations. Normally I would give the board a “C” for at least being accessible to the public via phone and email but I cannot ignore the fact that they went to the extent of asking the CETF to give them ideas to increase community engagement and have not implemented any of their recommendation in the last 17 months. For that I give the school board below average grade of “D”.

Caren Diedrich: Did Not Respond

Jim McCourt: Did Not Respond
____________________________________________
2. If it were solely your decision (i.e., not a board of 7), what would your ideas be to address the growing socioeconomic diversity inequity in our elementary schools?

Al Slane:
I don't pretend to have the answer, but I think we need to be looking at how we address this issue as it continues to spread across the district. First we need to decide if SAGE is the answer or not. If it is, how do we maximize its benefits, since we can only have two SAGE schools. If it is not the answer, how do we restructure things to get the best outcome for all of the kids.

We also need to consider how inequity is creeping into the schools due to the ability of different parent groups to raise more or less money, and the fact that some schools are new. Equity is considered as items are updated, but we may need to be a little more creative in funding of school budgets to make sure things remain equitable.

John Welke:
To best address socio-economic disparity one must understand that there are short term and long term ways to address this issue.
Short Term: For the short term there are programs such as SAGE (Student Achievement Guaranteed in Excellence) and Schools of Hope that are designed to address schools with a high poverty rate and lower student achievement. Student achievement should be actively monitored and the staff and administration in those schools should be regularly consulted to see if there are any resources above and beyond the norm that the State or School District should be providing these schools to level the educational playing field.
Long Term: Several years ago the school board attempted to adjust the socio-economic imbalance between elementary schools during the redistricting process to populate Creekside Elementary. At the time the Board ignored the recommendations from the Boundary Task Force and the community and came up with their own boundary changes that they argued were to make long term socio-economic changes to balance out students of poverty. This process was flawed from the beginning because there were no clear objectives and the board rushed to make a decisions with unreliable information. Now the elementary schools are in a worse imbalance than before the boundary changes.

Looking ahead and working proactively, Elementary School number 8 will likely be needed for the 2014-15 school year which is not that far off. If balancing socio-economics at a time that there is already going to be boundary changes I would begin work immediately to identify the areas that were flawed in the last boundary change process. I would work towards identifying primary and secondary objectives for the next boundary change. I would have the district administration begin assembling information so that the board will get the most current information by which to make a well informed decisions. Perhaps the most critical piece of this preparation process would be to begin communicating with students, parents and community members that a boundary change is on the not-to-far horizon so that they can prepare for potential changes.

Caren Diedrich: Did Not Respond

Jim McCourt: Did Not Respond
__________________________________________
3. As we know, hindsight is 20:20. Look back on the past 3 years, tell us 3 things that the school board could/should have done differently.

Al Slane:
Unfortunately, not much hindsight is needed to know the previous boundary changes were not handled well. There are always unhappy people when boundaries are changed no matter how good a job is done, but the previous changes were handled so poorly, that we split up the community. Moving forward, there needs to be more of a process instead of making quick decisions because we are out of time.The pool was not treated as a first class citizen when it was forced to be a separate question on the last referendum. By doing so, it was never fully integrated into the high school, and we are now forced to add a pool hallway after it is completed in order to complete the task.

The lack of a football stadium at the new high school is another cost cutting decision, that with hindsight, appears to probably be the wrong decision (home games become away games at Ashley Field because there is no locker room facility at Ashley). Moving forward we will have to live with the decision until another solution presents itself.

John Welke:
The three things that the school board should have done differently over the last three years are:
1. Ensured competitive bidding for the architectural work on the New High School, pool and remodel of the “Upper Middle School”. For some reason the school board deemed the architect that was used was a “sole source provider” and did not utilize a competitive bidding process. This was a lost opportunity to potentially save taxpayers’ dollars.

2. Increased community engagement. In 2008 the Community Engagement Task Force (CETF) gave the school board 6 recommendations to increase community engagement. Unfortunately none of the 6 primary recommendations were implemented by the Board. The 6 recommendations from the CETF were:
Establish an on-going community engagement standing committee
Improve Board member accessibility
Leverage the Web (it is the future)
Establish on-going communication committee
Produce a professional, district-wide, visually appealing newsletter
Increase Key Communicator usage

3. The process to populate Creekside elementary school and establish new elementary school boundaries in 2007 was flawed in many ways. The decisions made by the board did not achieve the stated objectives other than populating Creekside. This process pitted district residents against each other and created a situation of diminished trust with the school district. I hope that the board will use lessons learned by the mistakes made with this situation as they move forward in preparation for the opening of elementary school #8 in 2014-15.

Caren Diedrich: Did Not Respond

Jim McCourt: Did Not Respond

_______________________________________________
4. 60% of middle schoolers earned honor roll status recently. Some feel it is a reflection of grade inflation. Do you agree? Do you feel that grade inflation is a significant issue in the district? Why or why not?

Al Slane:
Perhaps, but if you look at the WKCE data, the number of kids in the proficient and advanced category exceed the numbers of kids on the honor roll. The disconnect is should grading be based on a bell curve or based on what kids know. From there, you have to decide if proficient and advanced are equivalent to B's and A's. This is where the jury is still out for me, as proficient is a pretty wide sale.

I think grade inflation becomes more of an issue as you get into high school. This is something we can measure, as core grades should correlate to ACT scores, and we are doing more ACT-type testing moving forward (EPAS passed at 3-8 Board meeting). It is also important because kids going to college need to be prepared for how things work in the real world, where there is a curve, and sometimes, good people don't make the cut.

John Welke:
Grade inflation is an issue that has come up recently. During my campaign I have had an opportunity to talk with a number of district residents who have expressed their concerns in this area. There is no doubt that if one were to simply look at the number there are quite a few students that make the honor roll. I do not feel that I have enough information on this issue in order to make a well informed decision/opinion. I will say however that up to this point much of the focus has been on the seemingly high percentage of students making the Honor Roll. I guess what I would like to see is the grade distribution of the students NOT on the honor roll. I believe that bit of information would go a long way in providing a clearer picture for everyone whether or not there might be a valid concern over grade inflation.

Caren Diedrich: Did Not Respond

Jim McCourt: Did Not Respond
________________________________________________
5. Each year electors in the district have an opportunity to actively participate in the Annual Meeting. In October 2009 the community voted to reduce the proposed tax levy by $2M. The economy is not in that much better condition and the proposed levy will increase 8.6% to about $48.05M. If the community again reduces the levy from the proposed amount what will your position be?

Al Slane:
I would not be very happy, as the proposed budget is under the cap while opening two new schools, which was not easy to do. A large portion of the increase is due to the increase in the debt levy and the increased expense of opening the schools (more people), all of which the community voted for. If we had not added 4K last year, we would be in a much worse situation then we are today. I am in favor of trying to bring the budget in more by finding some more permanent cost savings, but it becomes increasingly difficult without cutting services, which many have been very vocal about maintaining. More important, in my opinion, is making changes to prepare for potential state cuts in future years.

John Welke:
First let me say that I was pleasantly surprised to see the active participation and higher than normal attendance at the 2009 Annual Meeting. Typically the Annual Meeting is poorly attended with little community input. At the 2009 meeting the message was clear that the community was hurting economically and they wanted some tax relief and voted accordingly. Fortunately the approved tax levy coupled with budget cuts and use of Fund Balance will be sufficient for the district to make it through this school year.

The current projected 8.6% levy increase for 2010-11 has me a little worried. As you accurately stated the economy is not in all that much better shape and I’m sure community members, now better informed about the annual meeting, may show up in force to try and trim the school district tax levy even more. If too much is cut at once from the tax levy it may not be sufficient to operate the school district without significant cuts in areas that will negatively affect student achievement.

I think that the school district budget can and should be trimmed and that this should be an ongoing process throughout the year. The school board should be involved at every step in the budgeting and planning process and the administration should be more creative in finding areas to trim. In addition, I believe that increased community engagement will garner better support and trust by the community in the school board and district administration. This increased trust will benefit all parties involved.

Caren Diedrich: Did Not Respond
Jim McCourt: Did Not Respond
________________________________________________

John Welke added the following to his response. We offer the contact information as a measure of equity, as the other candidates have prominent school district phone numbers and e-mail addresses:

Thank you for the opportunity to answer questions for your readers. If you or your readers have any further questions you may contact via phone at (608) 825-7960 or by E-mail atJohnMWelke@Gmail.com.