At Wednesday, March 17, 2005, candidates' forum, Lawrie Kobza provided information that Mr. Clingan did not convene the Human Resouces Committee, which he chairs, to evaluate the Superintendent. As Chair of that committee he also did not follow through on a review of an administrative RFP from last spring that was developed in response to the public's concern about administrators (source: board minutes spring 2004). No follow-up, same issue with administrators this year as last and an increase in the administrative budget from $1.5 million in two years even with 2 less FTEs - it's about leadership and putting children's learning first.
Mr. Clingan pointed out that he had attended more than 200+ meetings. Attendance is important, but it does not demonstrate leadership and does not lead to meaningful committee work being done effectively on behalf of children's education and achievement.
Committee Chairs are leadership positions as is Vice President of the Board. Mr. Clingan said that the Board evaluates the Superintendent and they do so at each meeting providing him direction. You can evaluate the Superintendent at each meeting, but that is not very strategic and tends toward wasteful micromanaging.
The superintendent's contract requires the establishment of yearly goals. This is one of the most important undertaking's the board does. Historically, the Human Resources committee takes the lead in the Superintendent's evaluation - Ray Allen the former chair undertook coordinating this review.
If Mr. Clingan did not want to do this as Chair of that committee he needed to advise the Board president - apprently, since there are no goals in place for the Superintendent, this was not done.
The annual establishment of goals with the superintendent, which should be in place before the start of the school year sets the direction for the rest of the district and its employees and is an important communication goal with the community about what the district will be accomplishing in the short-term towards its long-term goals. What's so complicated about that? Why isn't it done?
Ms. Kobza also pointed out that last year that when Mr. Clingan chaired the Long Range Planning, this committee met for updates, but did not take on issues of boundaries, new schools, maintenance in a) any detail nor b) determine ways to involve the public in what would be a lot of work. In other words, no groundwork was laid last year for the enormous amount of work for the Long Range Planning Committee. Leopold families believe it's board votes this year that affected Leopold.
Yet Johnny Winston, Jr., at a previous board meeting, reminded board members that 20 year ago or more there was the knowledge that Leopold needed a new building.
From University Communications:
Event to celebrate women in science
(Posted: 3/16/2005)
The Wisconsin Initiative for Science Literacy (WISL) on Saturday, April 9, will present "Celebrating Women of Science," a daylong event that will feature talks by several prominent researchers, followed by hands-on science activities for teenagers and young adults.
WISL is a project of the chemistry department.
Scientists, including Laura Kiessling, Wendy Crone, Ann Kelley, Judith Burstyn and Gelsomina de Stasio, will speak on topics ranging from cancer to carbohydrates to the neural basis of eating. Chancellor John D. Wiley will make opening remarks.
Following the morning presentations, college, high-school and middle-school students can participate in any of eight hands-on science sessions. Among the activities, students can peer through a scanning electron microscope, handle live microbes or build working batteries on their own.
"Celebrating Women of Science" will take place in from 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m. on April 9 in Room 1315, Chemistry Building, 1101 University Ave. The event is free, but registration is required by Friday, April 1, for the hands-on sessions. To obtain a registration form, visit http://www.scifun.org/ or call (608) 263-2424.
I started attending meetings several years ago and, initially, was naive enough to take Carol Carstensen at her word when she said "if you don't like our cuts, you need to tell us where to cut." Board members then claim that they "have no choice" and that critics "only criticize but don't offer solutions." This is one disingenuous ploy, since it invites people to participate but leaves the door open for the board's typical response: we know more than you do and we don't like your ideas. This is not listening.
I was looking through some old records the other day, and found the following message that I sent to the board over a year ago:
March 25, 2004
TO: Members of the Madison School Board
FROM: Lucy Mathiak, 716 Orton Court, parent of two sons at East High School
Re. Some modest recommendations regarding the budget
Although I agree that unfunded mandates and state revenue caps have helped to create a bleak budget situation, it is clear that complaining about external factors that contribute to the problem will not erase the fact that the district faces a serious shortfall. It is time to get on with the serious task of evaluating what district spending is essential to the district’s basic educational mission and priorities. I also urge you to initiate the processes that are demanded of other public institutions: serious assessment and review to determine which district programs are working (including external review and meaningful parent input), which programs are peripheral and cannot be afforded at this time, and which programs are no longer essential and/or are dysfunctional and should be ended. To do less is an insult to the thousands of Madison area employees who have been engaged in just such exercises as a result of state budget cuts and downturns in the private economic sector.
I’ve had an opportunity to read and consider many of the budget documents that are available on-line. I also find that the documentation that is available thus far raises more questions than it answers. Since the publicly available information is presented out of context, with no larger picture of what remains in the budget or the number of FTEs after the cuts compared to one or two years ago, I am forced to take the recommendations at face value and consider what the respective actions will or will not do to resolve the budgetary shortfall.
I am particularly disturbed about the dollar amounts that school administration proposes to cut from General Administration $514,204 of which c. $150,000 is student leadership or minority service coordinator funds and thus cuts to students. Similarly, I am unimpressed with the proposal for Business Services, which cuts $2,434,195 of which more than $1 million is in custodial and trade positions and maintenance workers; $891,000 of the balance is from building maintenance and improvement rather than administrative staff. In short, this set of proposals appears to protect high level administrators at the expense of students and workers who are among the lowest paid and least powerful.
In the past, Carol Carstensen has admonished us to tell the board where to cut if we don’t like the choices that we’ve been presented. I do have some ideas, some of which involve cuts that should be reconsidered and others concerning missed opportunities to bring in revenue. I strongly agree with the comments presented by the Madison East Booster Club, so will turn my attention to simpler suggestions rather than repeating what they already have said.
1. Eliminate the practice of having district employees deliver documents to the private homes of board members. Surely these human resources could be put to better use in one of the areas that is currently slated to be cut. Ending this practice also would save on district printing and duplicating costs and would bring central administration and the school board into line with what other public and private agencies are doing to reduce costs. There are many ways that this could be done, including development of a passworded intranet, use of word processing and/or PDF e-mail attachments, etc. All of which would result in cost savings at the administrative levels.
2. Eliminate and/or reduce the number of curriculum specialists and other coordinators at the district level and put the emphasis back on site-based service. A large number of families would agree that TAG programming at the K-8 level has suffered since site-based TAG teachers were replaced with multi-school resource teachers and a district coordinator. At a minimum, eliminating the district coordinator position would eliminate what appears to function primarily as a bureaucratic hurdle rather than a true service to schools or teachers.
Similarly, having eight math specialists working in district administration with little or no classroom responsibility seems like an incredible luxury when the district is talking about increasing student to teacher ratios. It also is an insult to the many terrific math teachers who are in the schools and are perfectly capable of engaging, inspiring, and teaching our children without the benefit of the theoretical musings of the resource staff.
3. Bring parking fees behind the Doyle Building into alignment with fees charged for comparable convenience and access downtown and on the university campus (see attached). IF the district is charging fees to park next to the Doyle Building, and it doesn’t appear that that is the case, those fees need to be revisited. If the district were to create a parking permit fee structure that takes into account the convenience of parking next to one’s workplace, annual permits would be sold for $990 at the 2003-2004 rate. With c. 80 parking stalls available to MMSD in that lot, there is a potential to generate around $80,000 per year in revenue from this source. A policy to charge additional fees for reserved personal parking stalls, would further add to the revenue stream.
NOTE: UW-Madison’s relatively low rate for Lot 91 is related to its distance from employee work sites. Lots used primarily by administrators and located adjacent to campus buildings are at the top of the fee structure ($990/year in 2003-2004).
Carol Carstensen told me last night that I've been "angry" over elementary strings for the past four years. I learned many years ago never to "tell" people what they are feeling - 90% of the time you're wrong, and in this case Ms. Carstensen is dead wrong about me.
Her comment to me came after I asked her why the board would agree to a recommendation that puts the ENTIRE elementary strings program at risk if a referendum does not pass yet the board did not ask nor would it even consider a) reducing the administrative budget (increased $1.5 million over two years even with cut of 2 positions), b) reducing any of the services to high school children for extracurricular sports ($2 million budget) - which makes sense. They are paying 20% of the cost of the program, and, so are the elementary strings children. Plus, the board has an athletics committee - not a fine arts committee. Something wrong with this picture? Yes, very much so, and it's resulting in discrimination against underprivileged children who study instrumental music.
Elementary strings is not about me being angry - once again, Ms. Carstensen misses the point. This program is about 1800+ children all of whom are at the mercy of the referendum (more than 600 who are minority and more than 400 who are low income) - no other curriculum or course is put at such a risk nor affect as many children as this cut would. As a matter of fact, Ms. Carstensen, Mr. Clingan, Mr. Keys and Mr. Lopez took the budget cut document (not even a budget) and said - yep, this it, we can't do anything. It's a referendum, or you're done. They did this before even getting the budget.
Even though I have been one of the more visible advocates for strings, I am not the only person caring and asking questions about elementary strings. There have been hundreds of children, their parents and the community who have also been asking: why hasn't the administration and board come up with ways in which to make the program work and meet the curriculum standards and understand the performance results in other curricula that the fine arts contribute so significantly to?
On Monday, Mr. Rainwater said he has tried EVERYTHING and can't come up with anything, but what he is really saying is they won't come up with anything that he was not willing to involve teachers, principals, parents and the community to help us.
This is one more example of the "closed shop" our current School Board has become. The only way to change this is to change the board with new energy, new ideas and an openness to work meaningfully with the community - not to lecture the community about how right you are and how wrong I am - it's about kids' learning and achievement. We will need to do this to build public confidence in the board's ability to govern before referendums will pass. I'm afraid that is not there at the moment.
Maybe it was Ms. Carstensen who was mad when I also informed her that I had hoped to be able to vote for her, but based upon her under-management of the budget, recent decisions and her comments at the forum - we've done everything and if the referendum fails, maybe we can cobble something together for "those kids" at MSCR, that I would no longer be able to support her as a candidate for the MMSD School Board. I was sad about not being able to support her candidacy, not angry. But before I accused her of being angry, I would ask her.
We need a change - fresh, good old practical, progressive ideas. Referedums need to be one of a mix of options, not the only and we need a School Board that gets it by listening, not telling and threatening.