Barb Schrank started a discussion below about questions people would like to ask the board and superintendent during the MMSD’s budget deliberations. Here post actually hasn’t generated much discussion, so I’m re-posting the questions that I’d like to ask:
I’d like the Board and Superintendent to tell the community more about why the Superintendent choose not to use the Reading First funds ($2 million approximately) to expand Read 180 which is currently used and supported by the district.

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On March 1, 2005, the Northside Planning Council held an excellent, well run and informative school board candidates’ forum at Warner Park in Madison, WI. Candidates for Seat 6 (Bill Clingan – incumbant and Lawrie Kobza) and Seat 7 (Carol Carstensen – incumbant and Larry Winkler) answered a wide variety of questions on many topics.
Following are videoclips from that forum. The format for the forum following opening statements by the candidates was in three parts: 1) 3 questions developed by the Northside Planning Council, 2) each candidate asked their opponent a question, and 3) written questions submitted from the floor.
I. Opening Statements Candidates’ Opening Statements
II. Part 1: Questions developed by Northside Planning Council
A. Question 1 – City-School District Relationship: What is already being done to promote collaboration between the city and the school district and what creative suggestions do you have to further it? Candidates’ Answers to Question 1: City-School Relationship

B. Question 2 – Parental Involvement: What would you do, as a School Board member, to insure that the District is getting direct feedback from parents of color and low-income parents? How would you overcome the barriers that keep them from participating? Candidates’ Answers to Question 2: Parental Involvement
C. Question 3 – Changing & Developing District Policy: The District almost succeeded in eliminating or changing its current Equity Policy without substantial public dialogue. What measures would you implement to insure accountability, transparency, and meaningful public input into future District decision-making? Candidates’ Answers to Question 3: Changing & Developing District Policy
III. Candidates Ask Their Opponents A Question
A. Bill Clingan asks Lawrie Kobza about her position on building a second school to total 1100 K-5 students at Leopold Elementary School. Lawrie Kobza asks Bill Clingan why, as Chair of the Human Resources Committee, Superintendent Rainwater has not developed meassurable goals approved by the School Board since 2002. She noted that the Human Resources Committee has met only once since Mr. Clingan became chair. Clingan and Kobza Ask Each Other a Question – Leopold and Superintendent Goals
B. Carol Carstensen and Larry Winkler ask each other questions. Ms. Carstensen asked Mr. Winkler about a previous statement he made regarding revenue caps and Mr. Winkler asked Ms. Carstensen what she was most proud of during her 15 years as a school board members. Carol Carstensen and Larry Winkler Question Each Other

IV. Candidates Asked to Say How they Differ from Their Opponent Candidates statements about how they differ from each other in qualifications for the job.

The proposed Leopold Expansion discussion continues:

• Visiting with some Leopold Parents at a recent event, a number of points were discussed:
  • Parking is currently a problem and will be worse as the school expands.
  • “We keep taking away their playground space. Where are all of the children going to play? They need space to run around.”
  • “Why can’t Madison build a school in Fitchburg (ie, closer to where all the homes are going in)? Verona has – Stoner Prairie, in Fitchburg [Map illustrating Leopold & Stoner Prairie]. Many homes are as far from Verona shools (in Fitchburg) as they are from Leopold.”
  • “Where are all of these children going to go after Leopold?” “Will they be bused over to a Memorial/Middle School combination?”
  • “I’m concerned about the (proposed) shared library and cafeteria. Will they be adequately staffed for a school this size? The previous addition did not address the lunch room and library needs.
  • “I don’t want to pay any more taxes, it seems like every year we have a budget crisis but my taxes continue to go up. Couldn’t they plan better?”
• Arlene Silviera is puzzled about Ruth Robarts recent questions regarding the size of the proposed Leopold school.

Bill Keys, President of the MMSD School Board, chose to attack Ruth Robarts today in The Capital Times saying she was not the first board member to be concerned about the taser incident. Bill Keys’ letter seems to be unnecessarily spiteful and misses the point that was raised in The Capital Times’ editorial on February 15, 2005 . The editorial ended:
“Robarts is asking questions that need to be asked. And she is doing so in a thoughtful, forward-looking manner that invites the rest of the board and the community to join in a debate that needs to take place.”
There was no criticism of the School Board – just praise for raising questions publicly, which is what the School Board needs to do in a situation where children’s safety is an issue. The taser incident happened at Memorial High School on January 21, 2005. The incident was first reported in The Wisconsin State Journal on January 31, 2005, 10 days after the incident took place. In that article, Ruth Robarts commented that:
“School Board member Ruth Robarts said she was concerned that she didn’t hear about the incident until a reporter’s phone call.” I find this incredible that she would hear about an issue such as this nearly 10 days after it happened from the press.
In that same article “Member Bill Clingan said it’s appropriate that police authority trumps the school’s, and that the incident is a police issue. But as an individual, he doesn’t like to hear that a youth was subdued with a Taser.”
What’s missing – board governance. Neither Bill Keys, as president of the School Board, nor Bill Clingan, as vice president of the school board, did not appear to notify their colleagues about the incident in a timely manner; because, as it turns out, it’s not clear from public documents when they learned of the incident. How can that be? I would expect the first question Bill Keys might ask Superintendent Rainwater is: Why wasn’t the Board notified of this incident (at least before board members were contacted by the press) and what steps are you taking?
However, after learning about the incident, our School Board officers did not put the incident on a school board special session agenda so that they could 1) hear a public update about the incident from the Superintendent and what he was doing (such as, hiring an outside attorney to undertake an investigation), 2) provide the community with information about the incident that could be presented publicly and 3) have a public board discussion about next steps and what, if any, additional direction from the board to the Superintendent was needed. As an alternative, either school board officer could have written a letter to the paper about what the school board was doing to address the issue, complementing the questions raised by Ruth Robarts and letting the community know that this issue was of great concern to the board and that other board members were equally concerned as Ms. Robarts and were asking similar questions.
Instead, the public heard nothing from the school board president or vice president about an issue of importance to them (student safety) and what the school board would be doing. Rather than taking the opportunity to keep us updated, Mr. Keys decided more than one month after the taser incident to attack his colleague rather than thanking her for what she said, letting the public know what other board members were doing, and updating the public about what steps would be taken.

�This is part of democracy�
School board critics throw their support behind challengers
Jason Shepard wrote about the challengers in the upcoming April 5th school board race in the Isthmus on Thursday, February 10, 2005:
Download file with Jason’s article

Lee Sensenbrenner writing in The Capital Times on February 22, 2005:
“You’re manipulating my vote,” said Mary Kay Battaglia, who has children at Crestwood Elementary and Jefferson Middle School. “You’re giving me a choice to move my child and 1,100 others or to vote for a referendum I don’t think is necessary.”…
…Board member Bill Clingan said that the board was neither efficient nor intelligent enough to be manipulative…

Thanks, Ms. Robarts, for calling attention to the problems with MMSD’s fallback proposal for boundary changes on the west side, if a referendum to build a new elementary school should fail. You point out that under the fallback plan, too many kids would be coming and going from some schools, and that the boundary changes would disproportinately affect certain schools on the west side.
Do you know if anyone has come up with a better proposal to handle west side growth, in the event we can’t build a new school?

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On Monday, February 21, the Long Range Planning Committee of the Madison School Board will hear the administration�s explanation of five options for reducing overcrowding at Leopold School and providing seats for students from new housing developments on the west and southwest side of the district. Last Monday, after I asked the administration to withdraw options that it will not recommend, a set of nine options dropped to five. Of the remaining five options, the administration recommends only two choices. Option A (3A2 PDF) depends on passage of a referendum to build a second school building on the Leopold grounds. Option B (3D1 PDF) assumes that the referendum fails. Madison Schools Boundary Change web page.
I cannot support Option B, the fallback option in the event that the proposed Leopold referendum fails. There are important but unanswered questions about how the proposed school boundary changes would affect the middle and high schools on the west side. However, more compelling to me is that this option moves 1137 students to new elementary schools, including 516 low income students, and moves them in a way that will excessively disrupt many of the eleven affected schools.

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I agree wholeheartedly with the Capital Times February 17, 2005, editorial statement ( Editorial – February 17, 2005that the Madison Metropolitan School district ��seems to be determined to offend every supporter of public education in the city and surrounding communities�� The district administration�s proposed boundary changes and redistricting proposals presented to the board on February 14th was no �sweetheart proposal,� and once again demonstrated the lack of meaningful communication and collaboration between the school board and the public.
The Superintendent and his senior staff work in what appears to many as a heavy handed and an alienating manner, because the majority of the school board lets this happen. Do we want a board that allows the district administration present incomplete proposals and then drive the discussion with the board coming along for the ride? I know I don�t.
If Carol Carstensen, Bill Clingan, Juan Jose Lopez and Shwaw Vang did not support closing schools, then this criterion needed to be communicated to the district administration clearly via a public meeting prior to the development of and release of a district administration report with options for easing overcrowding in schools.
As Chair of the Long Range Planning Committee last year, Mr. Clingan had the opportunity to put in place such an approach for addressing these big planning issues. As Lucy Mathiak wrote in two previous letters ( February 2, 2005, February 14, 2005 )to the Capital Times editor, ��he squandered his opportunity.� This is not a hind-sight comment. A long range planning committee needs to continually be looking long range and adjusting planning as needed.
As hard as the LRPC has worked this year (meeting bi-monthly) trying to meet fast-approaching deadlines, that committee and the public advisory committee has not had an opportunity to discuss strategically and to plan for new buildings, maintenance and redistricting as a package. All of these piecesare interrelated and need to be considered in the context of the impact of various options on decisions about building a new school, closing a school(s), maintenance, etc.
From here on out, I would recommend that board members direct the district administration to work closely with the community and the Long Range Planning Committee prior to releasing a detailed report with recommendations. At a minimum, the Chair of the Long Range Planning
Committee (Ruth Robarts this year) should not be receiving administration recommendations on the fly as they are being released to the public.
Emerson is now off the table for discussion, in part because of Capital Times editorial and public outcry. Also, Ruth Robarts directed the administration to take the option out, because a) there was no support for this option and b) further public discussions would be necessary before revisiting this option.

From the editorial page:

The Madison Metropolitan School District administration, which seems to be determined to offend every supporter of public education in the city and surrounding communities, was recently forced to back off from a foolish proposal to close two east side elementary schools and a middle school. But the administration is still recommending that Emerson Elementary School be closed.

Lucy Mathiak adds to the Leopold referendum discussion.
More here.

From the Wisconsin State Journal:
The Madison School District has reopened its search for an East High School principal.
Superintendent Art Rainwater said only four of the 13 applicants met the minimum job requirements, and only two appeared to be viable candidates.
Continued at Madison.com
Ed Blume

Sandy Cullen and Lee Sensenbrenner discuss the Madison School District’s recent proposal to impose an outdoor field user fee.

On Monday evening School Board members heard from parents, professionals and a local business about emissions from Kipp Corporation.
Parents and Clean Air Madison are concerned that emissions from changes in manufacturing and a permit from the WI DNR will negatively affect the health of Lowell Elementary School children. Kipp Corporation maintains they are operating within both state and city guidelines. Both CAM and Kipp made presentations of their positions to the board.
After much discussion by board members, Ruth Robarts made a motion to ask the state Department of Natural Resources to install an air monitoring device at Lowell Elementary School. Her motion, seconded by Juan Lopez, passed unanimously.

Lucy Mathiak:

Dear Editor: I am writing in response to Bill Clingan’s Jan. 27 letter regarding the second Leopold School. A second school is long overdue. It is the right thing to do.
While there is no doubt that Mr. Clingan will be a vocal advocate for the Leopold referendum, one wonders where his passion for this initiative was in 2003-04 when he chaired the Long Range Planning Committee. As chair, he had the power to move the school forward, and he squandered that opportunity.
According to the school district Web site, the Long Range Planning Committee met a total of three times under Mr. Clingan’s leadership. Planning for a Leopold building referendum was not an agenda item at any of those meetings. The committee did not meet again while Mr. Clingan was the chair.

Before February 1 of each year, the Madison School Board must decide whether to renew its administrators’ contracts. If the Board plans to cut administrative positions, it must give the administrators notice that their employment contracts will not be renewed. Otherwise, the contracts automatically renew for one or two years.
Because continued shortfalls in state and federal aid for schools force budget reductions each year, the number of administrators and the total cost of their wages and benefits is a factor in the budget for the next year.
On January 24, 2005 Superintendent Art Rainwater used the following graph and table as evidence of a trend of reductions in the MMSD administrative staff.

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Three of the four candidates for Wisconsin DPI Superintendent participated in a Madison Forum Saturday morning. The League of Women Voters Melanie Ramey kindly moderated. Watch the forum here (video and audio clips). You can also read individual questions and watch/listen to the candidate responses.
Incumbent Libby Burmaster was unable to attend, though the three candidates mentioned that she has not participated in any primary events to date. I find this disappointing. These challenging education times require more debate, a more engaged citizenry and leadership.
I was impressed with the three participating candidates. They addressed the issues and were willing to put their names on a position.
In days long gone, it was likely sufficient to rely on special interests and avoid direct public interaction. Our current President certainly avoids any sort of critical engagements. Russ Feingold, to my knowledge, has always mingled easily with the public. [Melanie mentioned that incumbent non-participation is a growing problem around the state.]
The internet era is dramatically changing the way in which we all communicate, are informed and express our points of view. Any candidate seeking office would do well to participate in the conversation.
I also want to thank the local media for their extensive coverage:

• 3, 15 and 27. Their coverage enabled these three candidates to have a few broadcast words with Madison voters.
• Isthmus posted the event in their weekly calendar.
• Sheryl Gasser emailed and mentioned that Wisconsin Public Radio will be interviewing the four DPI candidates individually starting this Monday morning from 7 to 8a.m. through Thursday morning. I’ll post audio links to these conversations.

Take a look at the forum page and email the candidates with questions. The primary is Tuesday, February 15, 2005. Vote!

Monday night a majority of school board members voted to go to referendum in May 2005, one month after the April 5th election. To be on the ballot in May, the board will have to vote on referenda language by late February.
Why wait one month? In one month, board members expect to have more information about what the financial needs will be for the next year for educational programs and services. In reality, board members will have an estimate of the revenue gap for the operating budget. Carol Carstensen, before voting yes on a maintenance referendum, wants to see what the revenue gap is and what programs/services might be affected by the revenue gap.
To the public this seems like a jumble of information – vote to build a new school in January, vote to redistrict/close school in February, vote to redistrict so there’s a better balance/mix of students in schools in the near future, maintenance for schools that may be closed, and the real budget – the operation budget.

In an editorial in today’s Capital Times, School Board unity is identified as a key factor before deciding on going to a referendum. I couldn’t agree more with this editorial.
At this point in their deliberations, MMSD’s School Board is not ready to make a decision to go to referendum(s), because they have more work to complete and more discussions are needed with the public before making these important decisions. And, I do not count public hearings as conversations with the public.
Board members must be united and they must be able to present a complete, viable package to the public where they can demonstrate other options considered and decisions that led them to this as the best choice for our children’s education.
What is some of the work yet to do? Before voting on Leopold, review updated options for boundary changes and school closings. You won’t have a successful vote on a new school at Leopold if you vote to go to referendum on Leopold in January and come back in February with suggested closings on the east side of Madison. That won’t work.
The “maintenance referendum” is only one part of the operating budget. School Board members need to have the complete budget, and they need to know what the estimate of all revenues are for next year. Waiting for a same service budget won’t get them there and won’t let the Board make the decisions about where scarce resources are allocated. Board members need to begin a process to look out 3-5 years and tell Madison voters what our schools need to be successful, how much that will cost and what options do we have for funding our investment in education.
As a minor aside, the administration continues to tell the board that the maintenance referendum will not cost any additional property tax dollars. Wait a minute – isn’t it the School Board’s decision about how to finance their operating budget. Why wouldn’t School Board members want the “no tax increase option” to go toward the general operating budget.
Let’s get the whole picture – our children cannot afford piecemeal approaches to decisionmaking. Our children deserve leadership and hard work from our School Board members without threats that this list will be cut if you don’t vote yes on a referendum. That option won’t cut it with the voters.
As the Capital Times Editorial writes, “…voters have a right to expect that any referendums placed before the community will have the support of all board members, including Robarts, who was re-elected by an overwhelming margin last year despite the fact that she faced an able opponent and a concerted campaign against her. Robarts is not always right, but she is never so wrong that board members should feel comfortable going into a referendum fight without her.”
Robarts’ Long Range Planning Conmmittee, which she chairs, and the public advisory committee, which she asked the board to form, have been working hard and asking good questions. The advisory committee’s discussions have been substantive and well thought out. The advisory committee’s continued work on the school and maintenance issues will make an important contribution to referendum decisions by board members.
Had Bill Clingan, who, chaired Long Range Planning Committee last year convened his committee from late December 2003 through mid-April 2004, the current members of the Long Range Planning Committee might be further ahead in the process and Leopold Elementary parents would be in a new school in Fall 2006 vs. Fall 2007. Four months of no meetings last year potentially delayed the overall process and opening of the new Leopold School by one year – that’s an unfair burden for the kids.
Continue Reading Editorial: School Board Must Show Unity

An author, asking to remain anonymous, prepared a summary of the meeting on January 18, when Superintendent Rainwater met with community members and discussed the process for selecting a new principal at East High School. The author concluded:
“If you believe that our superintendent cares about East and wants to get it right this time (like he finally did at Sherman and Black Hawk), then you left the meeting feeling good. If you question the process and his decision-making ability given some of his poor choices in the past, you probably left the meeting feeling disappointed, which is mostly what I heard. Nothing has changed.”
“It was not said, but we pay for the mistakes for a very long time. A great principal can turn a school around in weeks, but a bad principal or several principals for several years can really hurt the students going through those schools. It is not just failing to master academics, but their feeling of connection gets hurt as well. It could be argued that some of the problems East is having today stem not only from the void at the top at East, but also from the fact that two of its feeder middle schools and some of its feeder elementary schools have been struggling due to poor leadership.”
You can read the full report by clicking
Report on meeting with Rainwater on East Principal Selection.
Ed Blume
ps. No I didn’t write the report. I didn’t attend the meeting. Ed