School Board Elects Two New Faces and Keeps A Third

Iowa City Community School District has two new faces in Sarah Swisher and Tuyet Dorau and incumbent Mike Cooper hung on to his seat as 4932 voters turned out for the hottest contested school board race in recent memory. With only 400 votes separating the top finisher (Swisher) from the 3rd place finisher (Cooper), the equally strong east versus west side turnout proved to be the deciding factor as Cooper, Anne Johnson and Dorau did well on the west side, while, Swisher, Dorau, and Jean Jordison did well on the east side. As it now stands, there are three west side members on the school board and four east side members. This should prove to be interesting in dealing with the third high school option and the boundary issues in front of the board.

Best of luck to the new members, the challenges ahead to all are daunting. John Deeth has some good information in breaking down the numbers.

Endorsing Informed Communication

After attending last evenings District Parent Organization/Gazette School Board candidate forum, two impressions were lasting. One: candidates felt that communication from the district and School Board to the public were generally lacking and two: trust with the public has been broken regarding the processes that allow the district to function. What was generally absent in the conversation is their priorities for how the board would communicate priorities and the financial constraints that will hamstring them for the foreseeable future in making decisions.

I felt that two candidates really understood the financial constraints better than the others, Mike Cooper and Sarah Swisher. A dialogue between the two of them was particularly telling as to how funding streams affect what can be done regarding busing students. This is not to say that other candidates didn't talk about "fiscal responsibility", but there was no particular context given for their statements.

With regard to creative/pragmatic solutions to the issues of student achievement, school overcrowding, and boundary issues, Jean Jordison highlighted the successes of the Davenport schools in using their school bond referendum monies in an accountable way. She also highlighted the need to look at best practices. Sarah Swisher also promoted the idea of targeted year-round schooling at Kirkwood and Grant Wood elementaries. Mike Cooper expressed an interest in exploring whether expanding junior highs to grade 9 or opening a separate 9th grade academy could be considered.

With respect to communication, April Armstrong and Tuyet Dorau were clear about ways to communicate the business of the board to the public in transparent ways using technology, board members being responsible to visit schools multiple times a year, and attending school events where they could communicate with parents. What was lacking in their presentation was how they intended to be effective in doing this given their own careers and family obligations. A discussion with Jan Leff and Tim Krumm may convince them that the time commitment to hold public meetings is considerable, particularly over a four year term.

Anne Johnson's contributions were not negligible, but were often agreements with others on the panel. Her most significant contribution was bringing up teacher salaries and her desire to keep district cuts away from the classroom, with the understanding that teachers would need to be open to a less than 5 to 6% pay hike annually when the allowable growth formula maxes out at 4%. Both Swisher and Dorau expressed a need to work to increase the state formula.

I was sitting next to former Iowa City council member Bob Elliott and he was supportive of candidates Armstrong, Cooper, Dorau, and Johnson. A former school administration professor on my other side, Arnold Lindeman liked candidates Cooper, Dorau, and Swisher.

At this time, I will limit my endorsement to only one of the candidates. I feel that over a four year term a lot of things can and will change. What I hang my endorsement on is what has a person done in the past, how successful have they been in pushing for change, and their willingness to stand in the face of adversity. In my estimation, only Sarah Swisher has demonstrated the experience, pragmatism, and toughness to work well with this board to really prioritize needs and creatively support equity in all the schools which is crucial to the long-term success of all students in the district. I also know that she can arm herself to the teeth with information when needed, as she did when she pushed for "Yes, for Kids."

I note that Mike Cooper has often been a refreshing voice on the current board, e.g., when it has been stalled or when district financials are presented. I wonder if he will hold up for a 4 year term like the last two years, particularly, as he noted candidly "at some point the board has to do it's work." Unfortunately, to do its work, there is some significant fence mending needed with public trust.

With regard to April Armstrong, Tuyet Dorau, Anne Johnson, and Jean Jordison, each has strengths, but each has a different learning curve. Dorau, clearly eloquent and intelligent, will need to bone up on the functions of the board and the process of this type of governance--I suspect reegardless of the outcome, we will see her in the political arena in the future. Armstrong, while clearly a leader in her particular school's PTO and a solid communicator, did not impress with her knowledge of the financial aspect of the job. Jordison often the most eloquent about neighborhood schools was also the most noncommittal about her function the board other than to move actions forward. Lastly, Anne Johnson was knowledgeable about achievement, as one would expect from an employee of Pearson Education. If Mike Cooper were not running, I would likely be more supportive as they have similar backgrounds and he has the experience.

Regardless of these observations, I wish all the candidates good luck between now and about 10 pm on election day, September 8th. Given the light turnout that often accompanies this election, the separation between winners and runner-ups may be a handful of votes. You can vote early through Friday at the County auditor's office or go to the website for the polling place nearest you on election day.

School Board Candidates: Think Inside the Box

School Board Directors are decision-makers; that is their chief role. The single most important limiter to decision-making is the budget. As people are deliberating whom to support for the school board election in their area, they should think about this: what does the budget look like and what is a reasonable way to accomplish the tasks that are needed to deal with a growing/declining school district? If push comes to shove, what would they cut and what would they keep? If the school budget is in deficit, how will they balance their budgets?

Clearly, as parents and taxpayers, we will not always agree with their reasoning, but that's also why this is an elected office. A candidate should be able to articulate what motivates their decisions.

With respect to the Iowa City Community School District Board election, we have the double edged sword: a school board operating under a significant deficit and a district that continues to grow. Any candidate who tells you that the district can be grown when the budget is already in the red is misleading you. Growth in this case can only come at the expense of instruction, curriculum, or facilities. All of which affect the students who attend area schools. Ask the candidates what they are willing to sacrifice for growth?

Finally, ask them if they will go to Des Moines and fight for the reallocation of the state funding formula so that schools can sustain themselves. The truth is that too many dollars that should be used for education are misspent, both locally and at the state level. Between the layers of bureaucracy and consultants, programs that have poor outcomes, and a Federal mandate that still has not been funded are leading to ineffective schools.

If a school board candidate tells you we need to think outside the box to solve funding problems, it's only because they are helping to nail the lid on it by not dealing with the hard realities that are present in the dollars with which they have to work.

School Board Candidate List Now at Five, er Make That Eight

With the announcements of April Armstrong, incumbent Michael Cooper, Tuyet Dorau, Anne Johnson, Jean Jordison, Josh Kaine, Jeffrey Manthey, and Sarah Swisher running for three school board seats, the make-up of the school board could shift dramatically at a time when the boundaries of the schools are being discussed for revision, the budget is currently $4-6 million dollars in the red, and a new high school is scheduled to be built. For a non-partisan race, this one is shaping up to be anything but.

The Lineup:

April Armstrong (R) is a Weber Elementary and Northwest Junior High parent who was on the Facilities Advisory Committee (FAC) that recommended the closure of Roosevelt Elementary.

Tuyet Dorau (D) is a Coralvillian who wants to focus on helping the district overcome its $6 million budget shortfall and eventually build a third high school in the North Liberty area. She also wants to also look at settling the district's boundary issues and plan further ahead than five years.

Anne Johnson (I) is a North Libertarian who recently helped lead a petition drive to encourage the school board to work toward the third high school. The mother of a Penn Elementary third-grader and a 4-year-old son, she said she has been attending school board meetings in recent weeks and offering her opinion regularly. She said along with working on the third high school and the district's budget issues, she wants to work on improving communications between the board and the public.

Jean Jordison (R) has been on the district's Comprehensive School Improvement Plan Advisory Committee which was selected by Superintendent Lane Plugge.

Joshua "Josh" Kaine (D) is a Dad and member of the We Love our Neighborhood Schools group and is "hoping to represent those of us in the community who feel strongly about the value of smaller neighborhood schools. Supporting historic preservation, with an emphasis on obtaining a better balance of tax dollars spent on new vs. older schools. Working for greater transparency in communications with the public from the board and the district, including an emphasis on seeking public input well before plans are written."

Jeffrey Manthey (I) also a North Liberty resident wants to focus on the budget, boundary changes across the district, crowding at West High and disparity of students receiving free- and reduced-priced lunches in the district.

Sarah Swisher (D) co-chaired the Yes for Kids campaign for the $39 million bond referendum in 2003 said she wants to, among other things, promote income and social equity in the schools and expand the number of volunteers working in the district. She also is a local labor leader for the SEIU and a former county chair for the Democratic party.

John Deeth (D) has a different take. Well worth the read.

Note: Thanks to a tip from an anonymous comment I received, I updated this story to correct the party affiliation for Tuyet Dorau who I listed initially as Independent. I've also added links to other sources with more info about the candidates.

Repurpose Roosevelt for Learning Center for K to 5

Given that the Iowa City Consolidated School District board of directors have elected to close Roosevelt school, here is a suggestion. Reopen it as an alternative learning center for those kids who are behind the learning curve. Educational research shows that kids who are behind by the third grade seldom catch up. If the children in the primary grades in the ICCSD who are falling behind had an alternative learning center where they could be taught in more intimate surroundings with state-of-the-art methods, perhaps they could succeed in the long run. In fact this would be a great opportunity for the Grant Wood AEA to step forward and showcase their expertise or for a separate charter school to be established.

Think it over, there is no hurry now that a new school will be built, another enlarged, and the same students will still need the help.

School Board to Vote on Roosevelt's Future Tonight

Despite the amount of time and effort that supporters for keeping Roosevelt School open have put into presenting a counter-argument, the alternative options that have been presented appear much more complicated than cracking open a fresh piece of ground and building a new, state-of-the-art school. From the school board's viewpoint, the benefits are numerous and include:
- less disruption to students at multiple schools;
- they are living up to the board's policy to create educational equity;
- putting new schools where growth is occurring and likely to occur;
- replacing infrastructure that does not meet their model of adequate teaching
environment;
- and the promise to repurpose Roosevelt in the future addresses the neighborhood's
chief concerns, despite the unknown, but relatively small costs of maintaining the
school shell.

Said differently, this is the path of least resistance. For a board that is incremental in nature, this would be deemed a victory; that is, making the least amount of people unhappy.

From the Roosevelt supporters point-of-view, the loss could be devastating for a corner of the community anchored by a living school. In discussing what will happen to Roosevelt, supporters are wise to be wary of any "promises" made in the heat of achieving the school board's intended goals. The school board can always declare a mea culpa because of budget concerns and all good faith agreements disappear.

Have the arguments for keeping Roosevelt open really been heard? Listening to the board members as they justify their decision tonight will be the best way of knowing the answer to this. With a school board election around the corner, it wouldn't be surprising for a member or two of the board to vote against the plan. So even the perception that Roosevelt supporters have received a fair hearing will likely be questioned.

In the final assessment, looming in the distance is a really important discussion that has not taken place. How to redistrict the district so that all schools remain relevant rather than closing old ones down to make room for sprawling new schools. The school district is not in a position to build new school after new school without making class sizes increase dramatically. Getting the most mileage out of existing schools has got to be predicated on the boundary lines of the schools flexing over time. For parents to be okay with this, each school will need to perform at similar levels and that is more difficult to govern.

The longer term solution to policy issues will need to come from reforming the board. If board members were elected in a district format like the city council, there would likely be more vigorous debate among board members about budget decisions and the growth within the district. With only two weeks before the deadline to put this on the ballot, it may not happen this election, but, if the fire is still lit by those disenchanted with the board's process, it could happen in the next election cycle.

Repurposing Roosevelt, Changing School Bells, and Staff Cuts, Oh My!

No one said being a school board director was a glamorous job. The pay is non-existent, you make unpopular decisions; but one qualification for it must be the ability to meet late into the evening. Last night was no exception. In a meeting that went until 11:30 pm, the school board managed to make West High Principal Jerry Argenbright, elementary school librarians, teachers, district parents, and students upset. At the regular meeting, they voted to reduce elementary school librarians and media center assistant positions to save $168,000 out of a proposed $6 million dollar deficit (which will mostly be made up by using the overage from prior year budgets). They refused to reconsider a change to the school bell schedule that will make it likely that teachers will have less time to meet with students after-school at West High School. In an especially heated exchange between a concerned parent and the board in the open discussion period over the funding of projects at Mann and Longfellow elementary schools, Toni Cilek chose not to answer the parent's question saying that the purpose was to receive input and that her concern had been addressed in previous meetings. Patti Fields much later in the meeting did discuss capital items that totaled approximately $153,000 for the two schools.

Former board member Lauren Reese sympathized with her former colleagues, and challenged them to consider the boundary issues around the schools as part of their decision process about Roosevelt. Charles Stanier presented information about energy consumption at the schools and encouraged the school board to consider lowering energy costs at all schools which could save them $275,000 per year.

As for the work session, where the board discusses business without public comment, which started after 10 pm, board members listened to the district superintendent Lane Plugge's recommendation to build a new elementary at the Crossings and his new view that Roosevelt should not be closed, but should be "repurposed" without elaborating his vision of how. After his presentation, the six members present did not have any questions for him, but vigorously defended their process in front of the remaining audience of about 20 people and made assertions that the opposition to the tentative plan had been dishonest in discussing the facts before tentatively laying out their likely votes to support superintendent Lane Plugge's recommendation. At the end of the evening, the board decided to calendar the vote for approving the plan for June 9th when all members are scheduled to be on hand.

The sleep deprived reporter Gregg Hennigan from the Gazette "Live Blogged" the meeting (go here for more details).

The Bloom Is Off Roosevelt?

According to the Daily Iowan, School Board President Toni Cilek said the board is hoping to make a decision on Roosevelt by the end of the month. “We have gathered a lot of information and feedback over the past few months, and there is a lot of dialogue we will be discussing this week,” she said. “We should come to a decision by our following meeting or the meeting after that.”

Despite efforts by Roosevelt parents, community members, and interested others, it is likely that the school board will elect to close Roosevelt Elementary. The reasons are many, but the simplest one is because it is the easiest choice. With a budget that is $6 million in the red, a growable elementary school in near proximity, land to open a larger and more geographically desirable school, and the strong likelihood that Roosevelt can be used in other ways which could include taking it off the school district's hands, the positives outweigh the negative impact of angry parents and avoid the more serious problem of boundary issues and their affect on educational equity.

Although the turnout of pro-Roosevelt forces is expected to be high this evening, much of the discussion of Roosevelt's future will occur in a work session, which means that the public can witness, but not comment on the proceedings. No decisions will be reached this evening, but the clock is ticking on the future of this westside institution.

Weigh In on Roosevelt: Take this survey

For residents of Johnson County, below is a link to a survey that has been developed by Charles Stanier about the Roosevelt School issue. You do not need to be a parent of a Roosevelt School student to complete it, as this is a community-wide issue.

http://sites.google.com/site/schoolsiowacity/survey

and while you're at it, take a minute to sign this petition: http://edvoters.org/petition/

Roosevelt Parents Fighting for IMBY

We all have heard about NIMBY-ism, the "Not in my back yard" attitude that prevails when neighborhoods are threatened by change, but the latest "draft" action by the Iowa City Community School District pertaining to area school facilities has some parents in Iowa City fighting for their neighborhood. The plan calls for the closing of the current Roosevelt school and building a larger one in the Crossing neighborhood which would cause parents in the Roosevelt area to bus their children and remove a central meeting place for the community. Lori Enloe and other parents in the Roosevelt school area are fighting to keep their neighborhood school in their backyard. For them it is an effort to improve the school rather than replace it elsewhere.

The School District sees this as a strategic move to lessen the overcrowding in some west side elementary schools and as a way to support student learning as "research shows without doubt that concentrated poverty and ethnicity make it more difficult to reduce and eliminate achievement gaps. These factors will play an important role in determining district facility decisions."


Weighing in on their behalf are parents in other older neighborhoods who fear their schools could suffer a similar fate and the city's mayor who has grave concerns about the sustainability of neighborhoods if neighborhood schools go the way of the dodo. In a memo to fellow city council members, Bailey says "This would have a
devastating effect on these neighborhoods and the City goals to encourage reinvestment in residential properties in the Central District and to achieve a healthy balance of rental and owner-occupied housing in the district older neighborhoods."

Additionally, groups like the Sierra Club, FAIR! and others are studying the issues of the strategic facilities plan from an environmental and economic justice standpoint. One particular point of controversy is whether the research cited by the school district is accurate. For instance lower achievement is tied by research to quality of school facilities, quality of instruction, and student support systems. Causality based on race or SES is often cited because it is easy to correlate, more so than qualitative measures.

The Iowa City Community School Board meets next Tuesday (2/24) at 7 pm at the district office on Dubuque St. It is likely that a large number of people will want to speak during the public discussion period. The School District is also planning public meetings on March 2 at 7 pm at West High School and March 7 at Northwest Junior High at 10 am.