Attack of the Narcisse Clones

Des Moines School Board Meeting: Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Summer is usually a slow time for the Des Moines School Board.  Because incumbents are generally favored for re-election by the rest of the board, controversial subjects are left for after the September 8 election.  This summer is no exception.

Two items on Tuesday's agenda are worth commenting about.  The first is the Superintendent's Monitoring Report on Asset Protection.  This report is one in a series designed to place ongoing accountability on the shoulders of the superintendent.  The report is available here.

(One of the things I want this blog to accomplish is to make reports and other attachments to the Board agenda readily available to the public.  Rarely are they available on the District's website and if they are I wish you luck in finding them.  The Register is hit or miss in posting them.  So if you hear or read about something the District is doing and want to learn more, check in here.)

The second interesting item is a discussion about a proposed charter school and a request for action authorizing the District to apply for Federal grant money for the charter school.  The grant would be for $150,000 a year for three years.

A couple of things are interesting about the approach being taken with respect to the charter school.  First, the School Board's approval of the grant application is a consent item scheduled to be approved before the School Board hears the presentation on the charter school.  The School Board has to be careful here.  Administrators love to work school boards to do their bidding.  Requests are made at the last minute so there is no time to think the topic through ("Action cannot be postponed because the filing deadline is tomorrow.")  Or a series of small actions build to a larger initiative that is delivered as a fait accompli ("The Board already approved Minor Steps Leading to Something Bigger last spring.  Hundreds of people are now counting on the Board to approve this Huge New Initiative. You can't change your mind now.")

Second, it is a grant and grants are tricky.  Let's say the charter school is approved and so is the grant.  Three years pass and the grant expires.  What happens to the charter school?  Does it close because it is now $150,000 short?  Or are other programs winnowed down so $150,000 can be transferred to the charter school.  See the problem with living off of grants?

It will be interesting if the Administration allows the charter school to become a campaign issue by scheduling a vote on it for the September 1 meeting.  Probably not (see above).

The Revenue Purpose Statement

The Des Moines School District has come along way in 10 years.  In 1999 pictures of buckets catching rainfall dripping into classrooms, dilapidated buildings, and closets used as classrooms were the images that caused the Schools First referendum to pass after several tries. Today it is security that is uppermost in the minds of the committee organized to consider the future of the local option sales tax. Gone are the leaking roofs, dilapidated buildings and closet-classrooms.  In their place are many new schools and many more renovated schools.

Despite the carping around the edges by fringe know-nothings, Schools First has been a success.  But that does not make passage of the RPS easier.  In many ways it will make it harder. Satisfied customers don't always vote in school board elections.  It is one of the many reasons predicting an outcome of an election or referendum is difficult (An analysis I did in 2004 of voting patterns in school board elections revealed that about half of the voters were voting in a school board race for the first time).

Another problem is that the critics will be out in force garnering a lot of the news coverage (satisfied customers don't speak up).  They will bring up the canards about the Central Kitchen, the few schools that were closed, and the Walnut Street building, despite strong evidence that contradicts their complaints, including the District winning three lawsuits brought by these misguided souls.

If Narcisse is really absent from the debate, only time will tell, that should help.  His candidacy would have brought a lot of anti-government voters to the polls wanting nothing more than to shove a stick in the eye of progress.

What about the RPS itself?  It reflects the success of the last 10 years.  The worst schools have been renovated or closed, leaving only those in relatively better shape.  Yet it is rather bland fare, designed not to offend anyone.  Its concept is to do a little for all of the remaining schools rather than select those with the most needs for a complete renovation.  Incremental repairs usually turn out to be more expensive than complete renovations.  And partial or cost-cutting renovations often turn out to be architectural nightmares, both visually and functionally.  I have always favored doing fewer schools well rather than many schools not so well.

So will it pass?  I have no idea.

Read Rekha Basu's Excellent Column Regarding the Code of Conduct

Here is a link to Basu's Sunday column in the Register regarding the Code of Conduct:

http://tinyurl.com/mowlc5

The reader comments are also interesting.  I particularly like the idea of the School Board members living up to the same Code as the students.

School Board to Reconsider Code of Conduct at June 2 Meeting

That is the good news.  The bad news is the District has not made the proposed changes available to the public.   Oh sure, they are available in the board packets that a select few receive, but how hard would it be to post it on the DMPS website?

Pressure Mounts on Board to Reconsider Overzealous Code of Conduct

Parents, Register editorials and former school board members are pressuring the School Board to step back from trying to be the parents of all 32,000 students all the time.  Through its recently adopted Code of Conduct the Board expressed the attitude that they alone know what is best for kids, not the parents.  But the message from the community is simple: Unless the kids are at school or school-sponsored events, it is the parents responsibility to 'police' their children. 

The School Board's action last week is another example of the public schools taking on a responsibility that is not their's to take. In this and other areas, they are making it too easy to be a parent.  Whether it is inappropriate Facebook entries, attendance or even doing homework, the more the District makes it their job the easier it is for parents to walk away from their obligation and blame the schools when Johnny can't read.  This is especially true in high school.

Personally, I wish the School Board would pay more attention to the fact that after April very little teaching and learning goes on in our high schools.  The days are filled with watching movies and going on field trips instead of teaching the subject matter.  One movie shown in a high school classroom would probably have earned a student a suspension under the new Code of Conduct had he posted the movie on his Facebook page.  I have heard from several parents with students in three Des Moines high schools complaining about this useless biding of time until school is out.  In one instance the student was even watching the same movie in two different classes!

The School Board needs to focus on education, first, last and always. I think there is an ap for that.

Action on the Discipline Policy Must be Postponed

It is unfortunate that the new Discipline Policy will be approved Tuesday night.  The Board needs to become more engaged in the process, because after Tuesday they will own this Code.  The fact that they haven't is unfortunate for the parents and students of this District.  I even doubt if a majority of the school board has read the new policy.

What the Board should do before they vote:

1.    Discuss what they want to achieve with the new Discipline Policy, its scope and its limitations.  The point is this, the principles underlying the policy should be determined by the board before the policy is adopted.  It should give direction to the administration, not the other way around. The Board has failed completely in this regard. 

2.    How do these policies advanced those principles?  Not a clue in this case; again failure on the part of the Board.

3.    Will these policies provide uniform enforcement?  Parents and students deserve the same treatment regardless of the school attended.  That will not be the case with this policy. 

For example, each of the levels of misconduct, I, II, and III, say they "include but are not limited to."  That is an open door to interpretation and abuse.  There is a legal principle that declares statutes can be voided for vagueness.  If that principle applied to students this policy would be DOA.

4.    What does the research say? The policies of other school districts were used in formulating this policy, but whose to say they are any good?

5.    Related to #4, what are the best practices?

6.    How can the District be proactive in preventing disciplinary problems or heading them off before they get worse?  The gist I get from the proposed policy is that it will be used to punish not help students.  Its reactionary.

What the Board should not do:

A.    Impose its value system outside the classroom or school activities.

B.    Seek uniformity with other school districts merely for the sake of uniformity.  Where have we seen that in history?

There was a time not long ago when the Board was moving away from the old way of doing things, merely accepting whatever the the administration proposed without any independent thought, to a higher level of discussion and reflection at a policy level before acting.  Those days are apparently gone.  And we are suffering for it.

The District's New Code of Conduct Needs Careful Consideration

The New DMPS Code of Conduct that the Board will likely vote on at its May 19 meeting deserves more careful review than the usual "discuss at one meeting and approve at the next" process which is the rule applied to much of what the board does.  It takes some time to read a 22 page document carefully and I really doubt a majority of the board has.

Another concern is giving parents time to read and digest the material.  This is not the best time of year to thrust new ideas on parents.  I'm skeptical of how much real parent input there has been.  The board materials say that parent and student input was sought.  I would like to know how much and was any of it followed.

I haven't had a chance to read the entire document, but I will.  In the meantime here are some observations based on a skimming:

1.    Facebook is a reliable source - page 19

2.    Non-crime crimes are actionable offenses.  Somehow if a student "commits" a crime but is not arrested, cited, convicted or adjudicated for that "crime" the student can still be punished for "committing" the crime.  My question is, What crime? - page 18

3.    A joke e-mail is as serious as a forgery and a host of other offenses. It is also not clear that the e-mail has to be to or from a district computer.  Regulating conduct in a student's home is a real reach of jurisdictional authority by the school district.  Hello, Big Brother? - page 10

4.    Engaging in lawful activity in a foreign country even with parental permission can lead to discipline?  What if the student is 18 or older and doesn't need parental permission?  And making lawful acts unlawful? Another instance of overreach.

The school board will become more of an adjudicatory body than an educational body.

 

Narcisse on the Budget

From the Register's Website.  The first paragraph is Narcisse.  The second and third are from someone with the handle "educ8me."  While I wish people would use their real names on websites (as I do) I could not have popped Narcisse's bubble better myself.  But I could not resist a couple of editorial jabs [in brackets]:

Narcisse: "Where can we save money? 1. Gut the excessive administration that is so prevalent in this District. 2. Gut the bloated bureaucracy that is ever present. 3. Quit paying for bogus curriculum and expensive consultants. 4. Eliminate the duplications. We have a legal team that could start its own firm. Do we really need that many lawyers? [The number of lawyers employed by the District is one.] 5. Improve morale so the Superintendent doesn't have to offer to pay staff to show up for work. 6. Eliminate things like the six figure professional development session downtown. It's a waste. 7. End busing and save millions using neighborhood schools. [It was ended years ago.] 8. Quit stealing the future of our children and start spending the money on them not business partners like Ed Boesen and John Kline."
4/8/2009 6:15:25 PM

educ8me wrote:

Nice soapbox, Jon, but as usual you dodge the bigger issue. You talk a big game, but who is going to do the research-based professional development in curriculum, instruction and assessment (to implement the legislatively-mandated Iowa Core and board-approved District Ends) when all the "bloated, wasteful, inadequate bloated bureacracy" and "bogus" curriculum people are gone? YOU? Good luck!
4/9/2009 3:08:10 PM

 

educ8me wrote:

Do your homework, Jon!! Some of those "bogus" pseudo-administrators are on teaching contracts AND are taking a pay cut effective July 1. Now even more teachers on 9.5 month contracts will actually make more than the "bogus" staff members who work12 months a year. Figure out how you're going to implement skills outlined by the board-approved district ends and the Iowa Core Curriculum without those "bogus" pseudo-administrators! Are YOU going to provide all that professional development? No one is saying teachers at buildings that lack air conditioning will have to give up their fans. What the district is saying is "tighten your belts" and save a few teaching positions! Believe it or not, other sacrifices are being made to save jobs! It's called working as a team...you should try it!
4/8/2009 9:19:03 PM

The Contradictory Narcisse

Narcisse loves to rant about the size of the administration of the Des Moines Public Schools.  One of his budget proposals posted on the Des Moines Register website was to "gut the bloated bureaucracy."  So what is the only motion he made to change the budget adopted this past Tuesday?  To add a bureaucrat.  An internal auditor that would have no contact to students and add nothing to their education.  That is his idea of gutting.

He also says in the same post that the district has so many lawyers it could start its own law firm. He asks rhetorically, "Do we really need so many lawyers?"  So, how many lawyers does the district employ?  One. And this is one fewer than Narcisse thought the district needed when he once recommended that a second lawyer be hired to advise the board.

Does this guy ever think about what he says?  Does he compare notes with himself? Or does he just say what he thinks his constituency wants to hear?

We Deserve Better

Last week the school board spent most of their meeting about the budget debating whether or not teachers should be allowed to have small appliances like coffee pots and pizza ovens in their classrooms.  Really.

It is not unusual for the school board to zero in on one aspect of the budget for special attention.  It allows them to appear knowledgeable and focused on the needs of our children even though it might be an immaterial budget item compared to the overall budget (now around $400 million annually).  But at least it had something to do with education.

And a couple of board members wanted to talk about school board policy and goals at the budget meeting.  Wrong.  The time to discuss goals was several months ago when the board set their policies and budget parameters for the coming year.  After the administration has spent weeks developing a budget designed around those goals and parameters the only legitimate question is whether the budget does indeed reflect them, not to have a discussion about what they should be.  To do so now is indicative of a board more concerned with re-election and looking good for the cameras than one that is serious about doing their job in a thoughtful and disciplined manner.

Of course, Narcisse is the worst of the lot.  He grandstanded the coffee pot issue, claiming that this "rabid dog" should be put down.  Well, he ought to know one when he sees one.