July 1st Ad Hoc Meeting and Its Documentation Materials

As I previously reported here, it appears that the Board is moving to wholesale change how the Board works and, by association, how the Superintendent works. I find it both troubling and disturbing and here's why.

Could the Board mechanics work better and by extension, Board meetings? Sure. But flip the table? Nope, especially when not a single one of the current members of the Board, when they were candidates, said this was a key item that they believed would help the district. (And do keep that in mind for next year's 4-Board seat election. I think some people might have some explaining to do.)

I would have no problem if it seemed to have come internally but I sense that the consultant from the Council of Great City Schools, AJ Crabill, has had a big hand in this. (He seems to be on permanent retainer.) 

The new Ad Hoc Committee made up of Chandra Hampson (ever in charge), Liza Rankin and Vivian Song Maritz have been hard at work. I finally did receive documentation on the three meetings they have had so far and it's a lot of very dense and lengthy work that  they are undertaking. 

I'll be reporting on each meeting because there is just that much documentation to cover. I'll do a last post with just highlights.

July 1, 2022

The first meeting of this committee and here's what the committee scope says:

Outcome:

Ad Hoc Governance Committee Scope

Clarify, focus, and plan the work of the Board in implementing Student Outcomes Focused Governance (SOFG).

Scope:

• Identify actions for the Board, including those necessary for: 

o Committee Diet

o Policy Diet

o Board Goal Setting and Time-Use Evaluation
o Progress Monitoring
o Community engagement
o Alignment of processes, practices, and behaviors

• Clarify what is Board work and what is Superintendent work to implement SOFG

• Establish Implementation timeline for Board work, including:

o Superintendent and Board evaluation timelines o Sequencing for Board actions (above)

Timeframe:

Complete work in 3 months (July 1 to September 30)

What does the word "diet" mean to you? I think a slimming down of workload, streamlining of workload or maybe even a reduction of workload.

What's troubling is while they are "dieting," the Board also wants to add more work, i.e. Board self-evaluation, starting every meeting and then move to quarterly." They want to sit and talk about if they are following their new SOFG protocols real time at Board meetings. But more on Board meetings later.

Also, that item "Clarify what is Board work and what is Superintendent work to implement SOFG?" Do they mean the clarifications are JUST for the SOFG work or all work? Silly me because here's what the Council of Great City Schools says (red bold mine):

Why School Systems & School Boards Exist

School systems exist to improve student outcomes. That is the only reason for which school systems exist. School systems do not exist to have great buildings, have happy parents, have balanced budgets, have satisfied teachers, provide student lunches, provide employment in the county/city, or anything else. Those are all means -- and incredibly important and valuable means at that -- but none of them are the ends; none of those are why we have school systems. They are all inputs, not outcomes. None of those are measures of what students know or are able to do. School systems exist for one reason and one reason only: to improve student outcomes.

An immediate challenge is that throughout the community there are many ideas about which student outcomes -- which measures of what students know and are able to do -- should be focused on (we refer to this as the community’s “vision”) and which means should/shouldn’t be used to accomplish this (we refer to this as the community’s “values”). A school system can’t be effective if it’s trying to pursue a myriad of incoherent visions while implementing a cacophony of conflicting values. So the decision was made to select a group of individuals who would collectively represent the community’s vision and values. We refer to this group as a school board. The function of the school board is to represent the vision and values of the community.

This sentence - So the decision was made to select a group of individuals who would collectively represent the community's vision and values - is a new thought in politics. Know where it's coming from? The GOP. Don't know if it has registered on your radar yet but on the right, there is this idea that the U.S. is not a democracy, but a republic. And the difference is that sentence.

Once you elect people to office, they really don't have to check in with you because, as they were elected with alleged "values" that they allege the majority of voters had, then those elected are now large and in charge of HOW they fulfill those values. Your last choice on that was voting these people in.

DO NOT FORGET THIS because it's absolutely what this new Board thinking is. Do feel free to ask any of them. And, if you get one who says, no - out loud with witnesses - do let me know.

There's also a lengthy list of definitions per the Council of Great City Schools. They include:

- Community Engagement: Time invested by the Board in two-way communication between the Board and community members.

To note on this one, there are several terms that may or may not define "community." What is amusing is how Hampson and Rankin like to use this word and now, this new work seems to want to redefine it. Hard to believe a Board operates without agreeing to basic terms.

- Customers: The organization’s recipients of services and/or transactional beneficiaries -- such as students and staff -- for whom the staff is better positioned to address and/or resolve issues in a timely and effective manner. In a school system, customers and owners can be the same people, and therefore care must be taken to distinguish customer issues from owner issues. [ see Owner definition ]

One issue that is apparent is the one of individual Board members hearing from families and the public on an issue and then that Board member try to solve it with staff. I would agree; that's not the way to address a problem. I also might not disagree that staff is "better positioned" but my question would be, WILL staff address/resolve issues? I'm not sure that's the case. 

- Owners: The organization’s moral and legal authority -- such as residents and taxpayers -- for whom the board is better positioned to address and/or resolve issues in a timely and effective manner. In a school system, owners and customers can be the same people, and therefore care must be taken to distinguish customer issues from owner issues. [ see Customers definition ]

 But, of course, if you hold no community meetings and you don't read your emails, then this definition is just word salad on paper. 

- Governance Team: All Board Members and the Superintendent. The Superintendent is not a member of the Board, but is a member of the governing team.

Again, tell us what governance means because for this Board, it may mean something quite different than your garden-variety dictionary definition.

- Superintendent Work: Items that are not legally required and that the Board has not designated as Board work through the Board's goals or guardrails. [ see Board Work definition ]

Wow! Note the absence of the work "policy" as in Board policy. I see that idea of "policy diet" in this definition. 

They give "sample guardrail examples," one of which should make parents pretty nervous:

- The Superintendent will not allow underperforming campuses to have principals or teachers who rank in the bottom two quartiles of principal or teacher school system-wide performance.

Or what? Will the Superintendent be moving teachers and principals around like chess pieces? You move principals or teachers who are high-performing, you are going to then run into a buzzsaw called PASS or SEA. And, does SPS even have enough teachers to be moving them around? If you are a teacher happy at one school who is told to move to a new school, you might leave the district. 

Then there's this:

●  Managed Instruction:

○  If instructional materials and methods are directed by the central office to ensure that students experience consistency and quality of instructional delivery across a system of campuses;

On the one hand, you would know - as a parent - that the instruction materials and methods your child receives at their school are nearly identical to what other schools are doing elsewhere in the district. However, this district has very much allowed schools - by virtue of unique school attributes - to do things differently. For example, would this mean instructional materials waivers are gone? 

Here's another one:

●  Earned Autonomy:

○  If the central office directly operates some schools and grants varying levels of autonomy to other schools; and

○  If the central office clearly defines operational thresholds that deserve higher levels of autonomy, and the specific autonomies earned, consistent with Board goals and guardrails;

Hey kids, nothing new here because waaaay back when Joe Olchefske was superintendent he put forth a theory of "tight, loose" for schools. Doing well by test results and parent happiness? The district will relax its hand. Doing poorly? Then that hand tightens into a fist. It didn't really work because you had schools giving a myriad of reasons (some good, some whiny) why they aren't in the relaxed hand. 

Keeping in mind these are SAMPLE examples but also keeping in mind that the Board and staff chose to put them into the documentation for this committee meeting for work the Board is doing, here's one that makes me shake my head.

●  Performance Empowerment:

○  If the central office devolves autonomy to schools; and

○  If the central office empowers parents to make choices among schools operated by differing partners; and

○  If the central office creates performance contracts with schools, annually evaluates performance of and demand for schools, and makes strategic decisions regarding growing access to high performing schools and addressing low performers;

"Empowers parents to make choices among schools operated by differing partners?" Like who? TAF or could there be others on the horizon. Is SPS considering being a charter operator (given their dropping enrollment and numerous buildings)? Who boy! That's a scary thought. 

Also within this documentation is what is stated to be 2019-24 SPS Strategic Plan." I did a side-by-side comparison of this document to what is on the district's website and they don't line up perfectly. I have to wonder why.