Taking Stock: State of the District

As another calendar year passes, it's time to reflect on the school district and how our school board is doing. Are we better one year down the road? Those suffering from pollyannaism may indeed believe so.

What have we really accomplished? Let's take a look back. Is this really what we expect from our elected officials???

Long tenured school board member and past president Mary Ellen Havel-Lang was ousted during the April 2008 elections. Has the school board changed as a result? Sadly, no. The status is most definitely quo.

We have opened the 7th elementary school, Creekside. Alas, the school is only half full, yet 3 other schools are nearly filled to the brim.

The high school is on its way to completion, but it may take some additional money to build an access road on Marshview road to the back side of the existing high school. It seems the DNR has some issues with paving over a wetland. How dare they? Funny hat no one investigated this earlier.

The fighting is still happening at the high school, so nothing new there. Does anyone really think that will change with a new high school?

For two consecutive years we've replaced a school board member mid-term. Hmmmm.

The school board unveiled a brand new $50,000 system to hold school board meetings on-line. Board Docs is up, but the jury remains out as to whether this represents an improvement, or a costlier widget. One good thing is that --so far--the PDF files appear to be text rather than image-based. Hoorah!!! That is a huge step forward. Just remember that we had that capability long before BoardDocs....we just didn't utilize it.

The district WKCE scores weren't anything to write home about. Good, but not stellar.

A month-by-month review of key issues is as follows:

JANUARY 2008

• Teachers picket School Board meeting.

FEBRUARY 2008

• Jim Carrel shakes up board meeting, claims to be ashamed of other board members
• 1st Community Engagement Task Force mtg
• Boundary wars begin as final recommendations presented to public

MARCH 2008

• Taxpayers get the bill for a $339 steak dinner ($42/person) as 6 school board members attend annual school board conference and treat themslves to a nice dinner
• Board discards Boundary Tasl Force recommendations and makes major changes causing a huge community ruckus.

APRIL 2008

• Election surprise: Boylen and Havel Lang ousted, Camber-Davidson & Shimek in , Stasckhouse re-elected
• Expulsions up 400% over previous year
• School Board decides to pay for District Admin Tim Culver's Rotary Club membership in addition to two memberships allowed by his contract.

MAY 2008

• The importance of checking one's work- the SPHS honor roll fiasco
• School Board meets to re-consider March Boundary decision, then reaffirms ealier boundary decision by split vote.
  

JUNE 2008

• High school graduation ceremony; students completely out-of-control. Neitrher school board or adminstration takes any action.
• SPHS makes the list, but it's not a good thing. SPHS failed to make adequate yearly progress

JULY 2008

• Communiuty learns that board president Stackhouse is 3-years delinquent on property taxes. (Hey...doesn't money for schools come from property taxes???). Later pays full $15K in arrears.
• Board votes (amazing!) NOT to spend $45-50 K to move school board mtgs from municipal bldg to district office.
  

AUGUST 2008

• Administration proposes $5.00/hr raise (from $32/hr) for Bus. Services Manager. Board sees the error in its ways and only gives a raise of $2.50 per hr (geee...that's awful!) but commits to doing a market comparison study (thereby telegraphing hope to 'justify' the rest later on).
• 9 adminstrators now in the $100K salary club
• SPASD debt now at $170M, 2nd in state only to MKE. (+ 4M more due to the pool vote in Nov)
  

SEPTEMBER 2008

• District Administrator Culver gets a B- on his performance evaluation (8.0 out of 10) despite meeting only 19 out of 56 metrics. (Math challenge question: How on earth does 19/56 = 0.8?) Translates to a 4.5% salaryt increase. How much of a raise did YOU get this year?
  

OCTOBER 2008

• The annual electors meeting was held. Once again, the 40 or so folks that came out to the meeting to vote was heavily weighted by District employees and spouses and/or school board members. . "We" voted to approve a tx levy of over $40M.
• Questions over "finder's fees" associated with naming rights for various "pieces" of the new high school gets approved.
  electors mtg
  

NOVEMBER 2008

• Fueled by a huge presidential election turnout, the Community approves (53.4%, 9715-8464)construction of a pool for the new high school AND allows the school board to permananently exceed the state-imposed revenue cap (51.1% (9189-8782)by $288K each year to cover pool maintenance costs beginning in 2010.
• SAGE program compliance is questioned. Will the school board back Culver's interpretation of what constitutes compliance?

Has Anyone Seen the District Annual Report?

The annual elector's meeting is scheduled for next Monday October 13 at 7:00 pm in the high school auditorium. But how would you know? Unless you noticed the little blurb in the STAR, or obtained the school board's meeting packet, or listened (yawn!) through the entire school board meeting to catch "upcoming meeting announcements".


One week away and no annual report. Certainly not on the website...or even listed as a meeting!


THIS is how the board expresses its fervent desire for community involvement?
By minimizing publicity of the annual elector's meeting? The annual meeting report booklet SHOULD have been posted by now on the website, and the elector's meeting should have been announced as an upcoming meeting for several weeks as well.

But....perhaps the board would rather you not know????

They sure have got their referendum propaganda machine in full working order...more than 30 days in advance of THAT key date. I'm certain that you could drop by the district office and, upon request, obtain a copy of the report. But you'd have to go to those lengths to get one.

The above screen shots are of the school district website as of this weekend. Maybe this posting will prompt some action.

School Board 3 - Citizens 2

...And you thought school board members were elected to represent YOU! HA! Yup...and Lehman Bros. were working for the people too.

At the Sept. 22 Finance Committee meeting, Board Policy GBJA (who names these things????) - Memorials was finally opened for discussion. The policy isn't a lengthy one; it says, in its entirety:

" The Sun Prairie Area School District may provide an acknowledgment at the time of a death of an employee or of a death in the immediate family of a district employee. The district administrator may use his/her discretion in determining whether to send a memorial or flowers. For purposes of this policy, "immediate family" includes parent, spouse, child, stepchild, and grandchild. "

This is really a simple issue that has nothing to do with sentiment or the amount of money involved. [SP-EYE note: Business Services Manager Rhonda Page indicates that only $308 was spent last years, yet checks totalling over $650 for flowers have been identified in check runs. And this doe not include "memorials" that may have been issued.] The reality is that the Wisconsin Statutes clearly state,

• On or before November 1, determine the amount necessary to be raised to operate and maintain the schools of the school district and public library facilities operated by the school district under s. 43.52, if the annual meeting has not voted a tax sufficient for such purposes for the school year. s. 120.12(3) (a), Stats.


• Powers of [electors at] the annual meeting...vote a tax for operation of schools. s. 120.10(8), Stats.

Flowers and memorials, while without question a wonderful sentiment upon the passing of a loved one, have nothing to do with the operation or maintenance of schools. These "little" examples of inappropriate spending continue to add up to questionable fiscal management.

As expected, Finance Chair Jim McCourt was fully behind the memorials, saying that the school district is an employer and an employee has to take care of its people. Right behind him were Terry Shimek and Caren Diedrich. Diedrich provided another one of her classic commentaries noting that her two cents was that she insisted that the policy continue to provide for flowers in the event of the passing of a grandchild of a District employee. She added that the loss of a grandchild would be devastating...more so than even the loss of one of her own grown children.

:/

Mr. McCourt...now could you explain to the members of Local 60 how you and the board stiffed them for raises so they could give Admin and Tim Culver big fat juicy raises? Oh, and while you're at it, could you please explain exactly how your "we care about our employees" drivel meshes with how the local 60 staff are the only ones whose raise ---bottom of the barrel though it is---gets further cut if health insurance costs rise above a certain amount?

And while we have your attention, maybe you could explain how you're "caring for the employees" when the Local 60 pay 15% of their dental premiums, while other staff get theirs on the taxpayers' dime???

Stop hiding behind those tired messages of, "It's only a small amount..." and "As an employer we care about our people...". Maybe you should give some thought to the fact that the citizen portion of the Finance Committee voted to eliminate or significantly change the policy. But you and the other board members voted to keep things status quo. Can't wait to see how the full board will vote on this issue at the next meeting.

It's inappropriate. Period. Co-workers by all means should take up a collection and send flowers. Or better yet...you really want to show that the district cares? Have Tim Culver open up his wallet and use some of that $425.00 per month "walking around money" we pay him--on top of over $140K in salary-- to buy those flowers or memorials as the "CEO" of the school district business!

Read here about a recent Massachusetts Inspector General investigation into school district financial mismanagement.

When the fiscal managers adopt a lackadaisical attitude towards district finances (an $80M budget), these types of things can--and do-- happen!

Culver : The "adults in charge" have spoken

The Boundary Wars began as an attempt to (A) populate the new Creekside Elementary, and then (B) an ancillary concept was to achieve better socioeconomic balance in the elementary schools. This latter objective was later tabled in favor of creating another one of those dreaded Task Forces.

The ultimate game of musical chairs that ensued ended up with identifying 53 children from the northern edge of the district (developments within the town of Bristol) to be relocated from Bird school to Westside. SP-EYE is awaiting final numbers, but all reports indicate that the actual number of students involved is far less than the original number--as little as 8-10 students. Subsequently 4 parents have asked the question, "...if space exists in Bird, and my older child is 'grandfathered' to remain at Bird, could you please allow my child's younger sibling to be with their sibling--at least for this year?" One of these parents, who was told "NO", shared the message that she received from Dr. Culver when she asked how she should explain the rationale for this inexplicable ruling to her younger child. Dr. Culver responded:

The parent responds
Excerpts from the parent's response to this extremely frustrating and inconceivable nonsense are provided below:
I think I will tell my daughter that sometimes there are circumstances in which people make rules and policies in life that do nothing to make positive change. In this case, some adults who forgot they are elected officials, are trying to mask a crisis in our community by randomly busing children all over town.

It is easier for [the school board/district] to ignore the true issues of the district and separate you from your family and middle school peers. I will encourage her to deal with this change by reassuring that no one in the community will allow for such incompetence to continue.

One important skill my children will learn is to have integrity. I will teach them to hold true to their principles and values. I will tell her how many adults would rather hide behind inaccurate data and incomplete information than admit when they have made a mistake. I will tell her to never be afraid to admit if you are wrong.

Finally, I reminded her that if the school board/district thinks this is over, they have under estimated the people of Sun Prairie. Thanks for your suggestions but I prefer to be honest with my children.

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SP-EYE: The board loves to prattle on about the importance of "neighborhood schools" and connectedness. How connected can you be if your older sibling is allowed to stay at one school whole the younger ones are left to try to make sense out of being carted away past not one, but TWO elementary schools to their new 'home'? Is that any way to emphasize family? Culver and others have been quick to offer, "well....you could have your 5th grade student choose to move to Westside with their younger sibling."

Once again, where is the logic in that? A 5th grader needs to continue to build on connections and relationships with their student support base in preparation for entering middle school next year. This is NOT the time to throw these kids into a new school! It's apparent that the board will not reconsider its bad decision--despite the message about accountability and taking responsibility for one's actions that their decisions have sent across the city. One would hope however, that if space is available, the board demands that the district allow siblings in these cases to remain with their brother/sister at Bird.

$50K to move board meetings?

The Sun Prairie school board is inching ever closer to its targeted goal line - to move the location of its meetings from the City Municipal building to the District Office.

Of course, making such a move is going to cost money: at least $45-50,000.

Alternative 1: Cost: $50,,000 + Cable connection to library for TV broadcasting. Move School Board meetings to Room 100 at the District Office, and duplicate the equipment at City Hall

Alternative 2: Cost: $34,000 + Cable connection to library for TV broadcasting. Move School Board meetings to Room 100 at the District Office, but with less equipment than is at City Hall.

Alternative 3: Cost: $ 350. Install wireless network access at City Hall for School Board meetings.

Why they'll tell you it won't cost this much.
The Partial Truth police are on full alert. The costs of various items are not all incorporated into the original figures on the FTT Situation report.

Concerns that neither the board nor the FTT committee has adequately addressed.

• Given the economy and the projected rise in budget as is, why move meetings from City Hall? $50,000 would pay for a position or a lot of textbooks.


• Aren't we supposed to have a "partnering relationship" with the City and City Council? Why would we NOT want to share a facility?


• The board keeps preaching streaming video over the Internet for its meetings rather than cable, and the fact that many residents don't have access to KSUN-TV. Great. But how many people have a slower Internet connection...like, say, a phone modem...and will never be able to watch streaming video coherently.


• This whole proposal is linked to the board's previous purchase of BoardDocs software and laptop computers for all board members. The school district has demonstrated a less than stellar comprehension of Internet technology. Do we REALLY want to sink more $$$ into this project before we really see how it works?


• District staff lack technological savvy. The District currently pays someone to scan existing documents (which are nearly always created with Microsoft Office software) and put them into an Adobe Acrobat Reader file (PDF) as IMAGES..rather than searchable test. Not only does this make board packages phenomenally large ( have you tried to download one?) but it is completely user UNfriendly because one cannot search through the documents to find the information one seeks.


• The BoardDocs software is only a tool. The end user has to make the tool effective. Currently the School Board's website lacks any sense of organization. Sure...you can find minutes from school board meeting from the 1990's. But how does one find contracts like those for to find out what we are paying personnel? How does one find information associated with past decisions...particularly contentious ones? If we can't organize files on the existing website, it won't happen with BoardDocs either.
• Has anyone given any thought to how this BoardDocs and meetings over the web will work for people with accessibility problems: hearing impaired? visual impaired?

Technology is great. But technology opens up a whole new set of doors behind which are a whole host of issues that need to be addressed. All that costs more money.

Culver earns more than Governor Doyle!

At the Monday, August 11, school board meeting, the school board is anticipated to unanimously approve a new 2-year contract extension for District Administrator Tim Culver. The new agreement gives Culver a total salary and benefit increase of 4.4%. 3.7% of that 4.4% raise is in salary alone or $4,957 per year. This raises Culver's salary to $140,786. On top of this, Culver is paid an additional $450/month to cover out of pocket expenses and travel within Dane County. That brings his total pay to $146,186, not including benefits.

Governor Doyle makes $136,268.

See the School Board Package for 8-11-08 (Refer to Appendix "F")

Al Slane selected to succeed Jim Carrel

While the Packers continue to deal with the aftermath of Brett Favre's decision to un-retire, a successor has been named to the Sun Prairie School Board; there will be no "un"-resigning here. Come August 1, Carrel moves on and someone else moves in. In the end, Carrel's knowledge of heating and cooling engineering will be replaced by...well...an engineer. In a 4-3 board vote, Al Slane decisioned Patrick Anderson for the vacant seat.

SP-EYE's crystal ball initially indicated that Patrick Anderson would be selected. For those trivia buffs, the Baltimore Ravens drafted WR Patrick Johnson in the 2nd round in 1998. The Atlanta Falcons' Jamal Anderson got his 15 minutes of fame for choreographing the "Dirty Bird" touchdown celebration. Upon receipt of the candidate application information, Kevin Viney's submittal temporarily caused the needle to jump on the Board Shenanigans (BS) meter. Following Sunday's vote, however, it became evident that the stage 5 BS alert was either a false alarm, or the board was unimpressed with Viney's 3 minutes flat time in answering the main 5 candidate questions. As the curmudgeonly Dr House would say: Engineer Guy was selected over Banker Guy, Real Estate Guy, and Educator Guy. Actually put someone with an education background on the board? Naaaaaahhhhhhhhh.


Candidates were each asked 5 main interview questions, followed by optional follow-up questions posed by board members. Board members came up with 5 follow-up questions which were generally asked of each candidate.

Ding Dong! Havel-Lang rejected by voters.

It was no April Fool's joke. Sun Prairie voters made a firm statement for change on our school board, voting out 4-term incumbent Mary Ellen Havel-Lang.

Election Results

Sun Prairie School Board (3 Seats)

Jill Davidson......................2,259.......24%....- 3 yr term
(I) David Stackhouse.........2,232.......24%....- 3 yr term
Terry Shimek.....................2,041.......22%......1 yr term
(I) Mary Havel-Lang.................1,481..........16%
Al Slane........................................1,326..........14%

Election '08: Is Havel-Lang vulnerable?

Conversation in Sun Prairie suggests that 13 (as in a 13th year on the school board) may prove to be an unlucky number for Mary Ellen Havel-Lang. Her recent positions regarding Boundary changes, the high school issue, open meetings concerns, and community engagement have raised the hackles of a growing number of folks. The overwhelming comments being heard include such things as:

• "12 years is too long."
• "Havel-Lang is all about writing policy, yet doesn't follow policy."
• "Too many personal attacks."
• "A master in the art of deception and controlling the information the public receives."
• "Havel-Lang is too controlling; she has to have her fingers in every pie."
• "It's Mary Ellen's way or no way"
• "The Sun Prairie school board needs a change in management."

Whether you support Mary Ellen, or support change, PLEASE get out and vote this Tuesday, April 1.

School Board candidiates - Summary

Here is SP-EYE's perhaps overly simplified summary of the 5 candidates' perceived strengths and weaknesses. Summaries are offere here in ballot order. The election is April 1, 2008. Don't be a fool, VOTE!


JILL CAMBER-DAVIDSON
Positives:

• Experience: served on Finance and now Education & Policy Committees


• Fiscal awareness demonstrated during Finance committee tenure


• Not a member of the Board-Admin "club"

Concerns:

• Can appear shy and reserved.

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AL SLANE
Positives:

• Brings a fresh perspective


• Engineering & technology skills a plus

Concerns:

• A little too much of a Jim Carrel groupie


• No committee experience; lacks knowledge of board operations

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TERRY SHIMEK
Positives:

• Familiarity with district operations


• Financial knowledge

Concerns:

• Professionalism a question mark. Seen on numerous occasions laughing AT fellow committee members' sincere comments


• Interest in the board seems to come and go. Ran 3 years ago


• Wife is a teacher...a potential conflict of interest?


• Too familiar with the District Administration?


• No response to League of Women Voters' candidate questionnaire

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DAVID STACKHOUSE (I)

Positives:

• Experienced (3 yrs)


• Keeps a level head

Concerns:

• Tends to pontificate at times


• Have seen some vote reversals

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MARY ELLEN HAVEL-LANG (I)


Positives:

• The school board is her life


• Experienced (12 yrs)


• Charming... if you agree with her


• Uses Roberts' Rules as her personal weapon

Concerns:

• The school board is her life


• Tone turns nasty...if you dont agree with her


• Too cozy with administration


• 12 years is too much; 15 years would be WAY too much

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