Stop Screwing Over Hockey!

We ran into this issue here in Wonderland...Sun Prairie USA.
But the problem is a global one.
Oh....you want to know what the problem is?
It's that kids playing hockey get screwed all over this state...and probably nationwide.

What the majority of districts tend to do...and perhaps more so for smaller districts with less revenue, is that they gouge kids playing hockey by raising the athletic fee for hockey (or assessing a surcharge).
What Athletics Director Jim McClowry TRIED to do (we think) was to show that many other schools set their hockey fees so much higher (5 to 10 times) than the average per sport athletic fee. And therefore Sun Prairie should too.  Of course he was also trying to fund additional soccer teams.

We are transforming hockey into an elitist sport.  Only those with lost of money can afford to play.  A kid gets to play baseball or football for about $50-100 (rough average)  but for hockey, the cost can be anywhere from $0 to well over $1,000.  Why?  This is already a costly sport in that things like skates and sticks can get quite pricey.  And if your kid wants to be a goalie...good luck...those pads can cost a fortune.  Sure, football kids need cleats...but skates are far more expensive...and need frequent sharpening.

The fickle fingers of blame will always point to ice time as the culprit.  And that's true...ice time is expensive. But at the same time, we're not operating on a level playing field.


The cost of ice time
Yes, Virginia, ice time is fairly expensive.  For Sun Prairie, the cot of ice time for the Boys Hockey program for 2012-1 was projected to be a little more than $22,000. Yeah...that will cause a few folks to whistle.  Hang on...

What about the cost of other fields/facilities?
....before you get too crazy, ask what it costs to maintain Ashley Field for a year.   Ashley Field is used for...what...8 football games per year plus a few times by soccer, lacrosse, and maybe Sound of Sun Prairie.  Estimates of annual maintenance have been reported to be as high as $80,000 per year.  In November, 2010, the most recent estimate was that is cost $15,800 per year to maintain...JUST THAT ONE FIELD.

What about all those baseball fields and soccer fields and softball fields the taxpayers just built?  How much did they cost to build?  How much do they cot to maintain?   How come we don't hear anyone raising baseball athletic fees because of the cost of field development and maintenance?  Ferris Bueller?  Anyone?

What about the fieldhouse?  Nice gymnasium!  How much does it cost to heat/cool on game nights?  To cleanup?  Security?  Why is that not factored into baseball athletic fees?

Put away your arguments that we can't afford to build an ice rink with every high school.  We get it.  But it's the cost of education...right?  Jut because we have to purchase ice time, we shouldn't penalize a group of kids.  If you're going to say "No" to ice time, then maybe you should say "No" to a pool....to sports fields...to a basketball court.   Maybe we should can all the athletics and just focus on education.   While a few might agree with that concept, that's not going to happen...nor should it.  But we have to treat all sports equitably.

Budgeting differences
The one valuable piece of information we obtained on July 30th from Mr. McClowry was that the cost for ice time has to come out of Mr. McClowry's athletics budget.  Yet the cost of maintenance of any other field or facility is covered under the General fund.  Is that how every other district does things?  If so, no wonder why hockey costs so much.

Facility Use Fees
Perhaps if we actually CHARGED every sport that operated a "camp" in or on school facilities/fields, me wight be able to lessen the blow of ice time.

Don't we WANT kids to participate in athletics?
Jim McClowry has shown some great data that indicates that students participating in athletics get better grades.  They also become more connected and learn life lessons in teamwork and sportsmanship.   Some kids just naturally enjoy hockey as "their" sport...THEIR vehicle to connectedness and the rewards of athletics participation.  So why are we penalizing these kids for their choice?  If we raise the fee, participation is going to shrink...right?   Why would we do that?

Golf too
Sadly, the kids that play golf go through the same thing.  For them it greens fees.  The bottom line here is that, like ice time, paying for greens fees is no different than paying for field maintenance or utilities and depreciation on indoor facilities.

Jimmy McClowry and the VERY Bummer Summer

Poor athletic director McClowry...
Monday July 30th should have been the last of his 30 day vacation.
But no vacation for him!
Instead he was the guest of honor at a school board work-study session looking into athletic fees and athletics and activities budget.

McClowry came out of the chute smoking, even presenting what some considered a thinly veiled "threat" when he noted the extreme turnover of athletic directors statewide and particularly in the Big 8 conference.  He concluded with, "Ladies and gentlemen, you are looking at the most tenured AD in the Big 8 conference with 6 years."

Over the course of the 2.5 hour meeting, McClowry...

• ...saw his proposed (and originally approved) hockey fees reduced from $375 down past the $200 last year fee down to the "Tier 3" level of $85.
• ...faced a number of questions regarding the inequities in his fee setting logic,
• ...referred multiple times to the need to "gradually change" fees to keep pace with other districts only to have board member Steve Schroeder (correctly we might add) that going from collecting $53K in fee revenue to $89K (a 68% increase) in fee revenue does not constitute "gradual"
• ...suffered the public unveiling of the "true" cost of Ashley Field maintenance (which the district has had for nearly 2 years) --in great detail--as $16K, far lower than the $60K the public had been told previously.
• ...also suffered from another revelation--another closely-held-to-the-vest estimate of $350K to build ANOTHER baseball field.  What we didn't learn was ....WHY.  Hmmm...and Dr. Culver wonders why at the public budget hearing people were concerned about "secret" budget initiatives.
• ...was forced to reveal a little know fact: that the FFA (Future Farmers of America) club has been (for 50 yrs?) the SOLE benefactor of concessions revenue from football games...to the tune of $33K per year!
• ...had to reveal that the DECA club is the sole benefactor of almost $30K in revenue generated from the SPHS student "store"...note that it is not the "DECA" store.
• ...had to reveal that the hockey program is "charged" for ice time and the golf program "charged" for greens fees, while none of the other sports are "charged" for the capital or maintenance cost of THEIR fields//facilities
• ...came under scrutiny by astute board member Mike Krachey for discrepancies in his data for coach stipends
• ...also came under scrutiny of board member Steve Schroeder who also astutely observed that we spend more money on both athletic coach stipends and activities advisors than we do on stipends for staff members writing K-12 curriculum.
• ...had to let it slip that while the district spends a fair amount of money on the Sound of Sun Prairie (SOSP), the district receives NO fee from any of the nearly 100 student participants.  Adding insult to injury, we learned from John Whalen that the SOSP itself charges students a "sliding scale" (increasing from grade 9 to grade 12) of anywhere from $650 to $1000 or more.  Hmmm...isn't that a little like a street dealer giving new customers a little break on the price of the goods to "hook them"?

Yes, folks, it seems that, unlike Judy Moody, Mr. McClowry had a VERY bummer summer.

But lest one think that the hammer came down on Mr. McClowry, the board was quite professional and made it clear that they did not want Mr. McClowry's budget to suffer as a result of their action.

TTYF

Of Sense and Sensibility...and Hockey Fees

After an often grueling (depending on your vantage point) 2 1/2 hours, last night the school board voted 5-2 to restore sanity to the athletic fees assessed for hockey.

Of course, the dissenting votes belonged to John  ("Swimming is a lifelong activity; the same can't be said for hockey") Whalen and Caren (" I don't know what's in my mind!") Diedrich.  No surprise there.

Ultimately the 5 board members voted the way they did out of fairness and equity.

Why should hockey players be "charged" for ice time when the cost of building and maintaining the field house and multiple sports fields is not "charged" to other programs?  Sorry, Mr. Whalen, but neither Ashley field nor Summit field are used for PE.

REDUCING HOCKEY FEES 

87 HUNDRED Dollars: cost of reducing hockey fees
900 THOUSAND dollars: 2011-12 budget surplus
73 MILLION dollars: 2012-13 SPASD budget
It's do-able people
...it makes sense
...and it's the right thing to do

Hell...just a few years back the district spent about $8700 a year on pizza for their staff meetings.

There are roughly 30 kids playing hockey now.
That means that reducing the fee from $375 down to $85 (the same Tier III as baseball, football, basketball and soccer) "cost" the district exactly $8,700.
This school district just completed a "tough" year with at least $900,000 dollar surplus.
Surely we could "find" $8,700 somewhere in a $73,000,000 budget in the name of equity...and perhaps giving more kids an affordable opportunity to play hockey.

Five board member thought so:  John Welke led the charge, with a supporting cast of Jill Camber Davidson, Tom Weber, Mike Krachey, and Steve Schroeder.

Thank them.

Support a ban on penalty shots

We don't mean the normal penalty shots occurring as part of a hockey game.
We're talking about the penalty shot leveled at the hockey program.

This past June we learned that Athletics Director Jim McClowry's operational budget was increasing by $32,679.
He had a plan to recoup that increased cost by changing the fee structure.
Instead of all sport fees being $50 (hockey assessed $200), he proposed a 4 tier structure with participation fees of $65, $75, and $85.  The 4th tier was reserved for hockey at a whopping fee of $550 (275% increase).

The $550 plan
Now mind you, if we look at all sport participants, that number is 1,043.
Of that 1,043 kids, only 30 play hockey (21 boys, 9 girls).
The total sum of the increased fees was $33,052.
Of that figure, at $550,  per kid, hockey was covering 32% of the operations budget increase.
That's right...2.9% of the kids (parents) were penalized into covering 32% of the operational budget increase.  We didn't hear anything about hockey costs actually being 32% of the budget increase...just that McClowry was levying a penalty shot to the hockey program.  Way to kill a sport, Jimbo!

Regrouping: The $375 plan
We suspect the district (and McClowry) received a helluva backlash, so on July 23rd, we heard that the district quietly had dropped the hockey fees from $550 to $375.  A nice gesture, but still a 188% increase.  Yes sports like football, baseball, basketball and soccer, are seeing a 170% increase, but the difference here is that those kids are seeing a DOLLAR INCREASE of only $35, vs. the $175 clam smacker laid on hockey parents.  Strike ONE!

Under this revised scenario, hockey kids (that 2.9% of all athletes) are still paying for about 16% of the total athletics budget cost increase.  Strike TWO!

Strike 3...you're OUT!
Here's the biggest secret the district and McClowry don't want you to know.  The numbers are out there, but they fervently hope that YOU don't put two and two together.


McClowry likes to highlight the cost of ice time....$22,200 according to his own budget numbers as the rationale for firing a penalty shot at hockey kids.  He likes to emphasize that no one else benefits from the ice time charges.


We have a response to that.  Do you know how much it costs annually to maintain and prepare the district's MANY fields?  They can't even tell you!  But what we DO know is data on what it takes to maintain just ONE field...Ashley field....used by ...what?  Football 5-6 games a year, a little for baseball?  Some Sound of Sun Prairie?  A couple of lacrosse games a year?


If we wanted to cherry pick, like Mr. McClowry, we'd use the figure David Stackhouse tossed out--and it held for many years-- $60,000 per year!!!!  That would mean that the cost of maintaining Ashley field is nearly triple the cost of ice time for hockey.  Now...we'd rather bring you real, unfiltered data instead of cherry picking.  Two years back the district determined that the ACTUAL cost to maintain JUST Ashley field, is about $16,000 per year.  (Of course that figure hasn't been widely publicized because Stackhouse's intent behind the $60,000/yr figure was a 10-yr savings of $600K...which he felt the district should contribute to turf for Ashley.  At only $15K/yr, the district "contribution: shrinks to only $150K.)


...and field maintenance is covered out of the general fund...NOT the Athletics operations budget.
...so why is ice time not covered b y the general fund?
...or greens fees?


The cost of maintaining Ashley field ALONE amounts to about 72% of the cost of ice time.
So why are we essentially charging hockey kids for the cost of their "field" when we don't charge other kids for their sport "fields"?


What is the solution?
The school board needs to take the cost of ice time (hockey) and greens fees (golf) out of the athletics operations budget.  The cost of fields and field maintenance is not covered there.  For hockey and golf, those ARE their "fields".


The school district paid about $1.4M for an incredible gymnasium that serves most sports...bit not hockey or golf.  $8.8M was spent on "site work", including the development of Summit fields, the new track, and all those other beautiful fields.  Hockey and golf got zip.  Even the arts program got over $500K for a fly loft.  We built a greenhouse, and added $75,000 towards a concert grand piano.  Hockey and golf?  Nothing.


It's time to make the athletics program equitable.  We need to cover ice time and greens fees under the general fund.
We also need to re-set the hockey fees back to the 3-tier system.  Put it on the highest rung...but charge no more than for any other sport for which the district cannot even begin to tell you the "operational cost" of their fields.  We know Ashley field costs alone are just a bit less than ice time for hockey.


Re-set hockey fees at $85.
Transfer excess athletic program fee revenue to the general fund.
The net "cost" to the district is $8,327.
In a $73M budget, that is peanuts...about 1/100 of a % (0.01%)

What did hockey & golf get?

Monday July 30 is the big school board work study meeting on atheltics and activities:

See the agenda and materials

This all started with Athletic Director McClowry proposing to raise all athletics fees a little bit ($40 max) EXCEPT for hockey.  The hockey kids--girls and boys--got poked with a very sharp stick to the tune of a $350 increase from $200 to $550.

As justification,  Mr. McClowry verbally presented some cherry-picked facts that suggested we were the only district NOT charging that much.  He alluded to the incredible cost of ice time.  We recall him using a figure of $30,000 or more.  The real number seems to be closer to $22K.

10 E 410 940 162223 000 BOYS ICE HOCKEY DUES AND FEES GENERAL 22,200.00

What we want to know is this:
As part of the new high school referendum, virtually every sport BUT hockey and golf got complete new "digs".   They got zip. Zero. Zilch. Nada.  So...if the taxpayers can cover that and field maintenance, why aren't we covering (taking out of the equation)  ice time and greens fees?

Isn't this all about equity, Dr. Culver?
Or do we just like skewing the data to make a point?


Sorry to say folks, but SP-EYE doesn't even have a dog in this fight.  We're not hockey fans.  But we believe in equity and fairness...and it's not fair to raise the hockey fees one iota.

Behavior Modification Therapy

When a new puppy peediddles on the carpet, what do you do?  You don't say, "there's a good puppy!", right?  Hopefully you also don't smack it either.  But what you need to do is SOMETHING to alter the course of future events.  Otherwise, young puppy is gonna be thinking, "YeeeeeeHAH, my master doesn't give a rat's hairy tookus if I just lift my leg and let loose on this nice comfy carpet.  And it's oh so absorbent, so I think I will."

Are you with us so far?

Along a similar vein, our school board needs to introduce some form of behavior modification therapy when administration does not produce what is expected.  Like a puppy who pees on the carpet, administration will continue to engage in unacceptable behaviors so long as the board allows it.  Ultimately, of course, it should be Tim Culver that is instituting the behavioral modification therapy (because ONLY Dr. Culver reports to the school board; all others report to the good doctor).  But, if he is unwilling, or unable, it falls on the school board.

In the real world, many people/businesses do something called a "post-mortem" after a decision has been made to evaluate the process and the decision made.  Let's do just that, in abbreviated form, and look back at the decision to raise hockey fees by 275%, when the most any other sport fee was raised was 70% (from $50 to $85; baseball, basketball, football, soccer, and wrestling).


It started with an informational item at the May 14th 2012 school board meeting.  Note that informational items require no action by the board--they just are told what transpired.  In addition, responsibility for establishing athletic fees was delegated to administration years ago (and maybe THAT is a decision to re-consider).

Discussion was had at the May 14, 2012 Board Meeting (https://schoolboard.spasd.k12.wi.us/Board.nsf/Private?open&login) regarding the changes being proposed by the Administration in fees related to students participating in district sponsored sports.  Fee changes were recommended for all sports, however, the fee for participating in hockey is planned to increase 275% from $200 per year to $550 per year. This would bring the SP Hockey fee into line with other districts in the conference, which range from $450 to $800 and last year averaged $644.

Subsequently board members Jill Camber-Davidson and Tom Weber put together a Situation Report to re-visit the athletic fees for 2012-13 at the School Board Meeting of June 11, 2012.  Now, bear in mind, those that present a Situation Report usually do so for a reason.  This Situation Report, an Action item this time, outlined the following recommendations:

RECOMMENDATIONS:Direct administration to research and prepare a report answering questions above and to:
Option 1:  Direct administration to maintain the current $200 hockey fee until further information can be obtained and research completed on a justifiable and appropriate fee adjustment and fee setting procedure.
Option 2:  Propose a modification to policy JN that would include language stating that any fee or fine amount change greater than ‘x’% in a single year be approved by the Board.
Option 3:  Propose that the Board take over the ownership and execution of procedure JN-R and have fees and fines established directly by the Board.
Option 4:  No action on this item

So...clearly a number of options were provided.  This was the meeting at which Athletics Director McClowry provided a long, ramblingly chaotic discussion in an attempt to rationalize his fee increase for hockey.  The problem was that (A) McClowry was obviously unprepared, and (B) the board was given NO hard data to support McClowry's ramblings, and (C) there was no verification of data which would have allowed the board to see that McClowry cherry-picked the data which supported his position.  A more complete analysis and more complete set of hard data would have shown a very different picture than the one McClowry painted.  A lengthy board discussion ensued.  In the end, however, the following motion was made, and you can see how the vote went.

Motion & Voting

hockey fees 4.06 - TO TAKE NO ACTION - (leave fee as in the procedure, but still bring to F[inance Committe] in 2 weeks)

Motion by John Whalen, second by Caren Diedrich.

Final Resolution: Motion Carried

Yea: Caren Diedrich, Mike Krachey, Tom Weber, John Whalen

Nay: Jill Camber Davidson, John Welke

So...ultimately the board decided to take no action, which essentially translated to "go ahead with your fee increase".  It was passive support.  Only board members Camber-Davidson and Welke felt that something else should have happened.  It's not our intent to throw board president Tom Weber under the bus, but we have to ask the question: "why did you support a motion that kept the fee increases when you co-authored the report to re-visit them?"

The next ...actually more of a comment... is for the four board members who supported the motion to leave the fee increases as is:
Your decision to take no action effectively rewarded Mr. McClowry's unacceptable report. (You DO realize that this kind of filtered, oral only information is unacceptable...right?)  This is Behavior Modification Therapy 101.  If you reward the unacceptable behaviors, then they will only continue (and multiply).  You need to get on a long term path to consistently enact consequences to correct (not necessarily punish) inappropriate behaviors.  This is the teachable moment...right?  Didn't we just invest a huge amount of time and money in PBIS (Positive Behavioral Interventions & Support)?  Did we not learn anything at the board table from this?  You must also see that ultimately these behaviors fall upon the district administrator to correct.  Your role is to make it abundantly clear with Dr. Culver that these behaviors will no longer be tolerated.  Call it tough love; call it whatever you like...but call it.

When administrative student problem behavior is unresponsive to preventive school-wide and classroom-wide procedures, information about the administrator's student’s behavior is used to (a) understand why the problem behavior is occurring (function); 

(b) strengthen more acceptable alternative behaviors (social skills); 

(c) remove antecedents and consequences that trigger and maintain problem behavior, respectively; and 

(d) add antecedents and consequences that trigger and maintain acceptable alternative behaviors.

Sorry to be hard on you, school board, but if this district is ever going to be what it could be, you need to be doing it better than the other guy.  You need to hold administration accountable.  You can trust...but you must verify.   And, perhaps more to the point...if you can't verify the information, you need to revoke the trust.  Do not let the puppy to continue to pee on the carpet...unless you care to spend an awful lot of money on carpet cleaning and replacement.

Hockey players hit with 275% fee increase

subtitle: Are hockey players supporting freshman soccer moms?
subtitle: Hockey fee increases needed to offset cost of adding freshman soccer program

Anyway you slice it folks, this seems wrong. Does hockey cost more due to the cost of ice time?  Absolutely.  Should there be a supplemental fee for hockey to help defray ice time cost? absolutely.  Is a 275% fee increase in one year acceptable?  Absolutely NOT!

Regardless, 4 school board members voted to accept the new fees.  There were allusions to the potential that the issue may be revisited when the athletic budget is brought to the Finance Committee in a few weeks.  Board VP John Welke, however, expressed concern that the board tends to let these things die once set.  We agree. In fact, Athletics Director Jim McClowry is so sure the fees will stand that he's already had the website updated to reflect the change.  That's moving fast, people...for a district office that plods worse than a tortoise on many more important issues.

Here are our problems with what happened, in no specific order.

No phased in approach.  We knew hockey cost a lot.  We've know for years.  So why hasn't the fee ratcheted up $50/yr each year?  Why isn't this increase from $200 to $550 spread over say three years?  Why suddenly are we all worked up to do something about "equity" NOW?

Dammit Jim, you're not making sense.  First you say that you're under budget constraints because the district office cut your budget (and all department budgets) by 10%.  Then you tell us that you're adding freshman boys and girls soccer next year.  Well...how can you be adding two new sports programs without new funding and in the face of a 10% budget cut?  That makes no sense.  Oh...THEN you tell us you want to raise all athletic fees and raise hockey, in particular, 275% (a $350 per student per year increase).

Champion cherry pickers.    As usual coming from the district, a little research indicates that the information on other program hockey fees looks to be cherry picked to make your case.  Yes...some schools (Madison) charge $800 for hockey.   But there are many other schools that charge a flat rate.  This district likes to present only the facts that support their position...not all the facts.  Whatever happened to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?


Funky math softens the blow.  Is it a 275% increase?  Or just a $175% increase.  It depends on the math you use, of course!  $550 ÷ $200 × 100 = 275%.   But...if we just look at the increase itself ($550 - $200 = $350) relative to the current fee ($200), then the "increase" is only $350 ÷ $200 × 100= 175%.  These are twicky wabbits, people.  The INCREASE is 175%, but the FEE is being raised 175%.   This is a classic budget ploy used by the district as well.

It's still apples and oranges.  Yes, ice time is expensive.  But which other sports include the cost of field maintenance.  We've heard the district tout that Ashley Field costs $60,000 per year to maintain.  And what sports play on that?  Football for 5-6 games a year? Even with a varsity roster of 70 something kids, that's about $900/year.  Do we charge football for that?  What about the cost of re-conditioning or replacing football helmets?   That's not cheap. Yet hockey kids supply their own...right?  And their own pads?  Does football?

Why is swimming charged the (new) base athletic fee rate of $65?  Isn't swimming the only sport to use the pool, with its very expensive maintenance costs?  Many schools use a tiered fee structure, but the schools we reviewed....those similar in size to Sun Prairie...had a maximum ratio of hockey: base sport fee of about 3 or 4:1.  These schools charge $100-125 as a base fee and then hockey gets charged about $400-$500.  In our case, the hockey fee will be 8 1/2 times the fee charged for swimming.  Hockey ($550)is being charged 6 1/2 times the fee charged for football, basketball and baseball ($85).  Really?  Football is only $10 more than golf?

It seems to us that ALL fees should be raised to at least $100 and then set a hockey fee at $250 with a programmed increase of $50/year till it hits $400.  Alternatively, we need a complete analysis of costs per sport and assess fees appropriately.  Hockey isn't cheap...but neither is football.  And that's not what the new price structure reflects.

Who ordered the 10% budget cuts?

Last night's (6-11-12) school board meeting was an eye opener on many levels.  We have so much to share.  But the big revelation came from Athletic Director Jim McClowry.  McClowry was trying to rationalize his plan to raise hockey fees by 275% (from $200/per athlete to $550) by presenting a chaotic jumble of numbers and percentages.  It was incredibly difficult to follow McClowry through all of his, "Wait...let me back up a bit..."s.  But that may have been all part of the plan...you know...remain purposefully obtuse when discussing anything budgetary in public.  But then, when explaining why he needed to raise hockey fees by 275%, McClowry let it slip (?) that his--and all departments'--- budget had been cut by 10% per Business Manager Phil Frei.  Of course, there was also the interesting piece that board VP John Welke coaxed out of McClowry that McClowry also needed money to cover his plans to add freshmen boys and girls soccer teams next spring.  Hmmm...was the added cost put on the hockey folks' shoulders to cover the 10% budget gap?  Or was it to pay for two new soccer teams???  More on that to come.  For now...let's get back to the 10% budget cut.

The school board was unaware of and did not direct administration to reduce budgets by 10%.  So...who ordered the budget cut...and why....and when?

After this revelation started igniting, Dr. Culver stepped in and clarified that it was not a 10% budget cut....but rather...that he and Frei had directed all administrators to only spend up to 90% of their budgets in order to keep the tax levy increase under 2.5%.

REALLY!  So limiting spending to 90% does not equal a 10% budget cut?  If THAT is not being purposefully obtuse, what is?

Why did Culver initiate a ...sorry, Tim...10% cut for all departments without consulting the schools board?  When were they going to be told?

THIS is what happens when you keep the budget behind Oz' curtain until July 30th.  C'mon, people...this is not transparency.  It's what gives the school district and school board a bad rap.  When are we going to find four board members willing to say, "ENOUGH!"?

Stay tuned, we have more questions than we have answers.  Meanwhile, we suspect someone has been summoned to the woodshed.