Bored at a BOE Meeting?

Try Japanese Pen-twirling to relax:

The League of Extraordinary Public Servants

Tonight we hosted a public forum to discuss the upcoming budget. Two former Board of Education members came and contributed to some very interesting discussion. It was good for the spirit.

A few weeks ago at a policy meeting, I suggested that former Board members be allowed to exercise the same speaking rights during Board meetings as current Board members. It's not so much that I expect a flood of former Board members to suddenly express interest but in cases where they have tackled issues that linger our board would certainly benefit from their experiences.

Another way to accomplish this would be to organize a Board Alumni Association of sorts online where they could plug in their thoughts on what we're trying to accomplish.

From what I heard tonight I think they'd all say, "Get out and vote tomorrow." It's an important exercise.

Effective School Board Characteristics

The George Lucas Educational Foundation has published a very nice article outlining The Five Characteristics of Effective School Boards by Arthur Griffin, Jr. and Carter D. Ward.

Since we are in the middle of budget season, here's two of their observations:

Effective Boards Allocate Resources to Needs
Not all students walk through the school doors with the same needs. Good school boards recognize this fact and allocate resources such as time, money, and personnel and adjust practices accordingly. Documents of the school district, such as the annual budget, are viewed as tools to reach student-learning priorities, and the district's spending and practices do not protect sacred cows.

Effective Boards Watch the Return on Investment

We are all accountable to somebody. Effective school boards are mindful of their own accountability to the communities that entrust their children to public schools; effective boards routinely and regularly measure and report the return on investment of the education dollars they spend. Effective policy makers today make their greatest gains by asking appropriate questions, and productive boards recognize the self-instructive value in making the following query an ongoing refrain: What services are we providing to which students at what cost and resulting in what benefits?

BOE meeting topics

Last Tuesday was the first BOE meeting I attended since election to the Board. Despite the election of new officers and a fairly clean slate, we addressed many issues.

1. Dianne Kaplan deVries, Ed. D represented the Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding and outlined who the organization was (a 501(c)3 nonprofit) and their goal of reforming educational funding in Connecticut. The Board chose to continue the dialogue rather than take an immediate position on aligning with this group.
   
   While her presentation was certainly spirited, my primary concern with the concept is that the State's richest communities already receive the lowest state education funding and our perennially poorest communities get the greatest funding. Given this already 'unequal' funding the schools academically perform in inverse proportion to state funding (the big city schools routinely struggle and southwest Connecticut schools do well).
   
   The paradox is inescapable. If fairness is re-legislated as averaging out funding across the state, wealthy communities will get more funding despite no crying need for it and cities who have the crying need will likely lose funds. That is, unless educational funding is suddenly increased dramatically, small town Connecticut will still not receive any relief - (let's not kid ourselves here - in New York such 'reform' resulted in massive cuts in educational funding - see; here).
   
   Personally, I also didn't like the obfuscation of the word 'Justice' - tax reform is tax reform but this is a minor thing compared to an issue such as segregated schools.
   
   

   Apartheid education, rarely mentioned in the press or openly confronted even among once-progressive educators, is alive and well and rapidly increasing now in the United States. Hypersegregated inner-city schools--in which one finds no more than five or ten white children, at the very most, within a student population of as many as 3,000--are the norm, not the exception, in most northern urban areas today.
   - Jonathan Kozol

   (We'll come back to this issue soon.)
   
   
2. We also discussed improving reading comprehension and aptitude. I had been thinking about an idea for some time that was warming received as a suggestion that should be tried. That is, the development and digital warehousing of podcasts of reading material and study guides used here in Region 19. Advanced students with good voices can read aloud and record MP3 study guides that students can use to help them read their assigned work. This will help those needing help without looking like they're studying and the digital tutor volunteers can get community service credits for their goodwill efforts.
   
   
3. EO Smith's Principal, Mr. DeLoreto presented a number of topics, one of which was the fact that the school library was reducing its dependence on hardbound material and increasingly leveraging online digital resources - a great idea that broadens the pool of resources while reduces the cost of purchase and storage of temporal materials. [After the meeting, Mr. Silva noted that many school librarians are already [in]formally meeting to proliferate this idea across the district.]
   
   
4. Mr. DeLoreto also took some pride in the fact that our class sizes are reasonable.
   I happen to think this is important information for parents for two reasons; 1. smaller class sizes are usually a metric indicating a better learning environment and 2. it means our teaching staff is not overwhelmed (and there's still way too much paperwork and nonsense coming from the outside for my taste).
   
   
5. The cost of busing jumped out as quite an expense. [We'll revisit this as well].
   

An issue that I'll return to soon will be the rethinking of compulsory education, the re-invention of the high school curriculum as a stream of consciousness rather than a series of inoculations, and the integration of educational activity into our communities.

BOE Orientation

Tonight Superintendent Bruce Silva held an orientation meeting for all new Board of Education members. Principal Lou DeLoreto joined us as well.

Briefly, I asked about changing the system of weighed voting to one person - one vote. This census-based algorithm is dictated by State Statute not by the school board. Personally I find it insulting and although I've been reassured that weighed voting rarely swings a vote one way or another I think that it contributes to a degree of cynicism about local representation that is corrosive. I plan to speak to every state politician that will listen to eliminate this statute. Until this is changed, we'll have to hold our noses and live with it.

I asked about the possibility of increasing the number of student (non-voting) Board of Education members from one to three where one student from each town would be a representative. This is within the power of the Board and I'll work through the appropriate channels to have this added to a coming agenda.

I also asked about the possibility of holding at least one BOE meeting in Ashford and Willington. My feeling is that both towns deserve an opportunity to share real face time with the Board and to simply offer elderly and local citizens a good faith chance to participate. This is another candidate agenda item I will work to address.

I suggested that BOE agenda items allow for some public participation time. Today the public can only speak at the end of a meeting - something I found oppressive when attending as a public citizen. In a discussion, I learned that the BOE has NO true obligation to offer any public discussion time. The Region 19 Board almost always does but along the tradition lines of offering time at the end of the meeting. My thought is that we need to experiment a little with this over time.

Everything I've heard from both Bruce and Lou over the past four months leads me to believe that Region 19 is very well run and thoughtful and caring toward our kids. I want to make sure everyone hears that.

When I was running I listened to various complains and suburban legends about EO Smith and I'm still listening. I have every intention of reporting back to you in this blog the closest thing to truth I can find about these issues.

As many of you know, the issue of fair opportunity is much discussed. Today Bruce and Lou made it clear in no uncertain terms that every student in the building is just another individual. The town that student comes from has zero bearing on their treatment by teachers, coaches, administrators, and so on to the degree that something like that can be observed.

I believe them, the citizens from Ashford should consider this true and any tall story to the contrary just another tall story until you receive a memo stating otherwise.