May 23 Board Meeting -- From Tim Kassel

Tim Kassel attended the May 23rd Board Meeting and, during the Public Comment section, used his five minutes to ask the Board to look further into the statistics of the test scores in the district. He wrote of his experience and posted it to the e-mail group. I'm posting it to the news blog, for the benefit of those not subscribed to the e-mail group. (Since the blog is set up to automatically send out an e-mail to the e-mail group, some of you may have already read Tim's comments. If you have, then feel free to read them again. They are that good.)

Here are Tim's comments:

Since I sent the email to the board members after last month's
meeting, I had another idea. The administration likes to use ITBS
scores to gage their performance, so I emailed Dr. Krause and asked
if I could get the raw test score data for the last several years.
My intent was to analyze the distribution of scores to characterize
the performance of the lower scoring students. Understanding the
confidentiality implications, I requested the data with the students
names removed. She replied saying the had to consult with their
lawyer.

Sometime later I got a reply to the email I sent after last months
board meeting from Paula Zasidil. She she it would be illegal for
the school to provide me with the data, referencing the Freedom of
Information Act. The reference to the FIA prompted me to ask for
clarification... would it be illegal for the school to provide it,
or are they not legally bound to provide upon my request. The
subsequent reply was the the school's legal council said they could
provide it but it could subject the school to the possibility of
some litigation from parents for privacy violations, even with the
names removed.

Do you smell something funny here? I do. Sounds like any threat,
no matter how remote, is all they've asked their lawyer to provide
so they don't have to expose a possible defect in their system. I
mean, describe for me a scenario where this threat could become a
reality... I can't think of one.

Additionally, Paula stated that the board was going have the school
begin to track the progress of our struggling readers this fall but
we should not expect any results for at least a year. I challenge
her on this - there's plenty of existing data that could be used for
this - it doesn't have to take years. Her next response said they'd
persue a study of ITBS scored with focus on their primary reading
groups, and it would take a several months to complete. It appears
clear that not a lot of thought was going into this.

So I prepared a short presentation for Monday's meeting to do two
things: 1) educate the board on the benefits of detailed statistical
analysis so they could get some really meaningful results out of
this study, and 2) to challenge this bogus legal threat the
administration was hiding behind.

Well the long and short of it is - the board had no intention of
hearing me out. Before I started, Paula formally reinstated a 5
minute limit guest comments. (This is actually allowed in Robert's
Rules of Parlimentary Procedure, but it's intended to limit the
speaking time of one person at a time, not the entire discussion.
Once anyone on the board spoke in response, I could have taken
another 5 min. Wish I would have been up on that going in - I would
called for a point of order on them.) I questioned the scenario in
which a legal threat could be realized and what the likelihood would
be. I proposed risk mitigation options such as confidentiality
agreements. Hill raised his voice at on point declaring that this
was not my job and that I'm not qualified to review education
systems. I explained that I'm volunteering to provide a valueable
service. They countered by saying they're fully capable of the
job. I challenged by asking who on the school staff is capable of
testing distributions for normality or testing two sample sets for a
statistically significant difference. Do they have the tools and
skills to do so? A moment of silence from the admin... then Paula
said, "if they don't have it, they'll get it." (sounds like a
unilateral decision to purchase software and training, eh?) I asked
why the details of the study that's been committed to were not
discussed in any board meeting. They want to defer to
the "expertise of the the trained professionals" on the school
staff. I said it's like calling a contractor, asking him to build a
deck on your house, and just let you know when it's finished - no
details of size, color or cost.

This only went on for a very short time before they timed me out.
It's all so very hypocritical after they had just sworn in Tom
Mollet with an oath including a promise to always be willing to
listen to the members of the community. I'm sickened by it. You
know, they don't have to agree with me, but they've taken an oath to
listen and have disgraced this community by violating it.

To continue from my previous post... as I said, they timed me out. Bob N. cited their full agenda as the reason for moving on. Now I had only taken 5 minutes, but through the course of the meeting they spent at least 15 minutes waxing on about what a great job Hill's done over the last 3 years (since this was his last meeting) and he replied each time in kind - verbosely. The ongoing mutual back patting was nauseating. I don't know what kept me from jumping out of my chair and barking like a rabid dog. The respect I showed them by not doing so is obviously not reciprocal.

An aside on Hill's departure - I wonder who's going to run the board meetings now - should be the president's job but Hill kept telling her when a motion had to be raised in this last meeting. I have a feeling that the decision to disregard my requests for topics being added to the agenda was his - he probably told Paula he'd handle it - as evidenced by when he raised his voice, saying, "It's not your job!" But he's got no issue with the teachers sending home spelling books to be graded by parents... whose job is that, John? It's my tax dollars paying for the schools that my kids and my neighbors kids go to. Don't tell me it's not my job. My tax dollars paid your salary. You're out of line. And you were out of order.

Sense a little bitterness in my tone? You sense correctly. I tried to handle this situation with professionalism up to now, but with this last turn of events, the gloves are off.

Patrick Garmoe - I know you subscribe to this. I left you a voicemail yesterday - would some of the other subscribers chiming in on this be enough to get some press on this situation? I'd like to understand why this hasn't been newsworthy to date. How about printing the letter I sent to the board in response to Monday's meeting... see below.


District 3 Board Members,

It is difficult for me to express how disappointed I am in the board's reception of my attempt to provide some input to last night's meeting. From Doris's comments about this being personal for me, it appears that you still think that I've put my time and effort in this because my son is involved in the lower reading group. The events that occurred with my son brought the issue to my attention. He's already at the end of third grade, however. I don't expect that changes could be affected in time to alter his core skill development through the school. Nor would I be pushing a statistical approach to the diagnosis if I thought he was the only one affected. The best interests of the community have been my primary motive.

My intent was to help the board understand that there may be better ways of looking at the school's and students' performance as a whole. The methods on which I was attempting to educate you are the same methods that many of the world's top performing companies use to understand, diagnose and correct performance issues. These methods have been successfully applied in a vast variety of industries, including service organizations that provide training. Despite my perception of the board's and administration's resistance to engaging in this approach, I have attempted to do this in a non-adversarial manor. This situation has now changed. I found Mr. Hill's assertion that I'm not qualified to assess the education system to be not only arrogant, but extremely offensive. He has no knowledge of my background or qualifications and he's obviously of the opinion that he and the principals have nothing more to learn. And the board appears to have bought into this omnipotence in that you have completely abdicated this issue to them and backed up Mr. Hill when challenged. When I questioned the administration if anyone on their staff has the capability and tools to do this type of analysis, Paula responded for them by saying something to the effect of "If they don't have it, they'll get it." Do you have any idea what the cost of the tools and training for this would be, Paula? Or was that just an empty commitment in an obvious attempt to shut me down?

You, as a board, have not discussed the details of what is going to be explored in the study. There was no proposal from the administration for what the study is to cover in detail in any public board meeting. There was no motion or vote to approve any of this, yet you tell me that it's been a discussed and decided and the administration is going to have results in a few months. You folks motion and vote on every minute proceeding of the meeting, yet you did all this without a vote? It's all BS from the board in a attempt to placate me, and stonewalling from the administration because they don't want to take a chance on exposing any possible defects in the system. You've left the fox in charge of the hen house, and will likely end up with a report that consists of more average score data that masks the true picture... an easy way out for all involved, because you don't have the time or desire to turn over a few stones or challenge the administration. Fifteen minutes of mutual patting on the back between John Hill, the board and the principals makes for a much more pleasant meeting, doesn't it, and then you can all go home a sleep well at night.

The truly ironic part is that Tom took his oath last night, the same one you all took - it should have been a reminder to all of you to listen without prejudice to members of the board as well as members of the community. Yet when Steve Pickering asked about the proper channels for the community to contact the board, you limit it to a 5 minute window, once a month... because, I suspect, you really don't want to hear from the community. You don't want to be challenged. If you don't like what you're hearing, you can shut it down... and last night, you proved it to be true. It's a distasteful display of hypocrisy and a disgrace to our community.

Tom - it was your first night on the job and you walked into the middle of this debate - your silence is understandable. Pat and Gerry - you were not in attendance and I would not presume to hold you responsible for the actions of the others so I do not direct these comments directly at you, but you're cc'd since you're members of the board.

Sincerely,
Tim Kassel

May 23rd Meeting -- Public Comment (or Speak When Spoken To)

I’ve been writing this one for several days, now. It's long, and I'm sure it's clunky, but it does express my reaction to the Public Comment portion of the May 23 Board meeting.

A little background: one of the reasons, maybe the biggest reason, this website and group were started was that I had received several comments from people in the community, that told me, in one way or another, that many residents felt excluded and out-of-touch with what was happening in the school district. It wasn’t that they didn’t care; they were more than willing to discuss their opinions on various issues. It was that information was often difficult to come by, with individuals having to scour minutes of past board meetings, which is difficult to do, and appear at board meetings in person to address the members of the board and have someone listen to your concerns. If you don’t have access to the meeting minutes, if you are not able to attend board meetings, even due to work or family obligations, then you are not able to participate in the process. Even if you are able to attend meetings, you find that many issues are raised, discussed by the board, and voted upon without any time for the residents to voice opinion or concern. Those who do attend and speak at the meeting, in the Public Comment portion of the meeting, at the very beginning of the meeting, are often made to feel as though the issues and concerns they raise are theirs alone, that their issue couldn’t possibly be of benefit to anyone else in the school district. In short, I was hearing from people who felt disconnected from the district and from the board members elected to serve them.

This website, and it’s e-mail group, was started to help better facilitate communication within the district. The more people have access to information, the more people discuss their concerns and the concerns of their neighbors, the better we can participate in the decisions the school board needs to make, the better we can understand those with whom we disagree, the more we will feel invested in the school district, and the more we will participate. When we discuss these concerns with our neighbors, when we accept that we all have the same basic goals of making our district strong and secure, when we listen to other points-of-view in that context, we find new and creative solutions. It’s a better conversation when all who want an avenue for expression have one. So, one of the things we instituted was the idea that we would ask a question or raise a comment for anyone who wants us to. Then, we would post the response from the board.

I write this entire prologue, because I think it is important to the question I asked at the May 23 meeting and the response I got from the board. Normally, I try to write the question, and post the response with as little opinion from me as possible. I want the reader to make up his or her own mind, so I try to leave my commentary to whatever discussion comes forth in the e-mail group.

This time, I can’t. My feelings are too strong. If you disagree with any of what I write, fine; great! Please, share your thoughts! But this time, I’m adding my commentary here as well. A lot of it. Fair warning....

The question that came in was how to find the board members’ e-mail addresses. It’s such a great question, I wish I’d thought of it myself. But I wanted to be fair; some people don’t like e-mail, or don’t use it at all. So I left the question more open-ended: How would board members prefer to be contacted, and where would constituents find that contact information?

Maybe the answer shouldn’t have been unexpected; but it shocked me, nonetheless.

Board President Paula Zasadil said that she would like people to work through teachers and administrators, then appear at a Board Meeting to address the Board in the Public Comment portion of the meeting.

That’s it.

We, as constituents, as the people who elected the board members to be our representatives to the school district, are not to contact board members individually or collectively to ask questions or voice opinions on anything to do with the school district, unless we are all at a board meeting, and the board has given us our allotted time.

By the way, that allotted time? Five minutes.

Do not call, do not write, do not e-mail members of the board outside of a board meeting; that’s the way the board members want to hear from you.

“For what purpose?” wondered Board Member Bob Nunamaker. He said that board members don’t have any individual authority; so contacting board members outside the meeting wouldn’t be very successful, in his opinion.

Now, if someone were expecting a decision or action RightNowThisMinute, then Bob has a point. If, as I suspect is more often the case, someone wanted to have a board member listen to their concerns, if someone in the district were unable to attend the monthly board meetings, then Bob is wrong; Board members don’t need any individual authority to listen to people. In fact, as elected representatives, they have a responsibility to listen to the people they represent.

If you wanted to have an issue added to the meeting agenda, forget it; it’s nearly impossible. According to this response, if you wanted your elected representatives to add an issue to the Board Meeting Agenda, you would have to attend the meeting and make your request at the meeting. Of course, the agenda is set before the meeting, so your item won’t be added to the current agenda. From the responses I’ve seen in the past year of attending board meetings, it’s not likely your issue will be added to next month’s agenda, either.

The response the Board gave to Tim Kassel when he made just such a request at the May 23 meeting (see his posts in the e-mail group – I’ll post it on the news blog as well), is sadly, typical. When he appeared at last month’s meeting, his requests to further investigate whether or not some children are being left behind academically, despite the good test scores within District 3, was met largely with test score statistics and defensiveness by the administration that we have great teachers, a point that was made repeatedly, even though all agreed with it, and it was decidedly off-topic. When Mr. Kassel came before the Board at this month’s meeting to further discuss different ways to analyze the test score data, and requested that a study of the data be added to a meeting agenda, he was told that the issue was really just his issue, not one that concerns the whole district, and besides, the board has been discussing this in the last several meetings. Really? When? I have been attending these meetings for a year now, and I don’t recall any such discussion at a Board Meeting.

When Mr. Kassel made individual requests to get more data from the test scores, he was first told that such a request would violate the Freedom of Information Act, then he was informed that releasing such data would expose the district to possible lawsuits for violating privacy, even when the data contain no identifying information.

At that point, I wondered how the test score data are currently aggregated. Given the response above, how is anyone able to analyze the data at all?

When I interviewed for the open board seat this year, Supt. John Hill talked to me about this website. He told me that, if I was appointed, the website would have to come down. I thought that, if I were appointed to the seat, my contributions to this website would most likely change, and I’d hoped that others would be able to add content from the public point-of-view, since my perspective would be changed. But, John said that my contributions not be possible, since I express my opinion from time-to-time (though, I suspect, not as often as he thinks), and that an opinion I expressed would be the Board’s opinion, and that can’t be without the entire Board expressing the same opinion. So, I wouldn’t be able to express an opinion about issues in the district.

I cannot think of another government body that conducts itself in this manner. Have you ever written to a Congressman or Senator, at either the State or Federal level? Do they have a phone number you can call, an e-mail or physical address to which you can write? Were the phone numbers and addresses published, so that you could find them? Did you get a response, or did you get a request to attend a meeting of the Legislature?

I have written to my Congressman, Rep. Donald Manzullo, and to my Senators, Sen. Dick Durbin and Sen. Peter Fitzgerald. (I haven’t had the occasion to write to Sen. Barack Obama yet, but I’m sure I will at some point.) In each case, my elected representatives responded to my letter, phone call, or e-mail, addressed my issues, and, in some cases, took action on my behalf, all without my having to attend a meeting in Washington, D.C. How is it that these representatives can publish contact information, listen to my concerns, and respond; yet District 3 Board representatives cannot? The answer escapes me.

April 25 Board Meeting -- Capitalizing

Look! An evening with not-too-much scheduled! Let's see, what haven't I written about from the last Board meeting.....

The Summer Capital Improvement Plan was introduced at the April 25th meeting. Supt. Hill noted that the District will be spending $9000 more on capital improvement than was spent last year, but remarked that $7000 was for installation of the gym ceiling at Algonquin Road School (ARS).

Board member Bob Nunamaker wondered what the life-span of the mobile units outside ARS is. Supt. Hill said that the mobiles will last a number of years. His last school district, he said, had 36-year-old mobiles. He did caution that, when District 3 bought our mobiles, we bought the cheapest mobiles we could, thinking we wouldn't use them very long. He said that might be an issue in the coming years.

About the roof at ARS, Hill said that we've had some leakage above the 1st and 2nd grade rooms, as well as above the art room, and that will have some cost to repair when that improvement is budgeted. He said that the high roof above the school library is also in need of repair.

The breakdown for capital improvements, which was approved unanimously by the Board, is as follows. Items in bold are considered big-ticket items:

Fox River Grove Middle School

1. Painting projects - Don Lewan $500
a) Paint and scrape soffit in room 203
b) Paint rooms 108, 103, 106, 107, MP restrooms, bridge hallway
c) Touch paint locker rooms, gym, and restrooms
d) Paint exterior and interior doors
e) Paint exterior railing as needed
f) Paint kitchen

2. Complete ball ledge in new gym - Rick Miller $100

3. Clean and discard old A.V. equipment in meter room - Linda $0

4. Refinish floors in gym and multipurpose room-specialty floors - Tim Dilsaver $2,852

5. Repair door in meter room and add master key lock - Rick $100

6. Paint boys locker room floor - Rick $150

7. Replace shades in room 203 - Rick, price and order; Linda, install $100

8. Tuck point southeast corner of old wing - Rick arranging contractor $2,200

9. Repair cracks in asphalt - Jerry $100

Total for FRGMS $6,402


Algonquin Road School

1. Install gym ceiling - Rick and Jerry FY05 $7,000

2. Repair cracks and seal all asphalt areas - Jerry $3,000

3. Painting projects - Don $900
a) Paint nurse's room and restroom
b) Paint front office hallway
c) Paint conference room and shelves
d) Paint teacher's lounge
e) Paint restrooms - Kindergarten (2), ECE, Primary resource
f) Paint table frames in cafeteria
g) Touch paint mobiles in repaired areas

4. Replace damaged floor tile in room 104 and 3rd hallway - Rick $50

5. Replace damaged screens and latches - Rick $300

6. Construct overhangs for mobiles and repair skirting - Rick arranging contractor $7,500

7. Replace awnings on mobiles - Rick arranging contractor $800

8. Level wood chips and trim trees and bushes around school - Jorge $0

9. Replace concrete around light pole in front walk - Rick $100

10. Complete replacement of roof drain covers - Rick $500

11. Paint gas pipes on roof - Rick $250

12. Replace sink cabinet in room 205 - Rick $300

13. Repair and paint both custodial closets - Rick $300

14. Replace lighting in Library - Rick $2,500

Total for ARS: $23,500

Grand Total: $29,902


Summer employment

Don Lewan - painting ($12.55/hr; 40 days - $4,016)
Tim Dilsaver - general ($7.00/hr; 40 days - $2,240)
Adam Sadik - general ($7.00/hr; 40 days - $2,240)
Derek Haselhorst - general ($7.00/hr; 40 days - $2,240)
Andrew Zasadil - general ($7.00/hr; 40 days - $2,240)
Jackie Bowman - Secretarial and Teacher Aide ($7.00/hr; 40 days - $2,240)

April 25 Board Meeting -- Getting Technical Again

Dr. Tim Mahaffy presented a revised Tech Plan at the April 25 Board meeting. The 3-year plan expenditures are still projected to be $222,500.00 ($71,000 in year one, $75,750 in years two and three), but there will be one change: the pilot program using online tools for tracking student performance would take place at the Middle School only. The original plan had the online tools in use by ARS in year three of the tech plan. He also said that he was expecting feedback from the State of Illinois, which must approve the plan, and should have that feedback to present to the Board at the May 23rd Board meeting.

The breakdown of the Tech Plan is as follows:

Year 1
Technology Budget ongoing $39,000
Professional Development $2,000
Equipment life-cycle replacement $30,000
Total Year 1 $71,000

Year 2
Technology Budget ongoing $39,000
Professional Development $2,750
Equipment life-cycle replacement $30,000
Software $4,000
Total Year 2 $75,750

Year 3
Technology Budget ongoing $39,000
Professional Development $2,750
Equipment life-cycle replacement $30,000
Software $4,000
Total Year 2 $75,750

Plan Total $222,500

April 25th Board Meeting -- Q&A (What I saw)

This post is a follow-up to Tim Kassel's post. Rather than restate the issues brought up (since Tim did such a good job of recounting what happened in his post), I'll try to fill in from my notes and provide some of my own thoughts....

Tim presented the Board with the facts of his son receiving additional tutoring, outside the District 3 school system, for reading. Since his son is in the lower level reading class, receiving B's and C's, but classified by his teachers as "reading below grade level", Tim sought to have testing performed by the district. After two months, he was tested, with the result of testing showing Tim's son as "average". This raised the question, how could he be average, yet read below grade level? Tim sought outside evaluation at Huntington Learning Center, where his son tested at 2.3 grade level for reading, and 1.2 grade level for oral.

Tim commented that if report card grades are vastly different from private testing, there's a problem. So he did some gathering data of his own, and called the families of 3rd grade students in District 3. Out of 57 students, Tim was able to get a response from 45 parents (79%), on whether or not the student was receiving tutoring outside the district. Of the 45 parents contacted, 7 were receiving outside tutoring, and 2 were giving the matter serious consideration. Said Tim, "We are leaving some kids behind. If we look at test scores vs. averages, we are missing the boat." He added, "We need to look at our testing methods and teaching methods."

Tim went on to say that Dr. Jackie Krause told his wife that the school teach the children reading in the 4th grade. He added that he is not complaining, but that he has the best interest of the children at heart. He also noted the Board voting record over the past year, that only 3 "no" votes were cast on all motions made. Tim thought that more of a difference of opinion should be represented by the Board.

Board President Paula Zasadil considered the number of students in outside tutoring, but noted that she wasn't sure whether or not the number constituted a lot of kids.

Dr. Krause rebutted Tim's statements, noting that the teachers of District 3 are outstanding teachers. She added that she knows Tim's son is struggling in reading, and is getting extra help in the classroom.

She also added that she thinks the number of students receiving outside tutoring is a low number, and that it doesn't measure how many students in other towns are tutored. She said that outside tutoring may not be a reflection on the school system, but may only measure the interest of the parents. She noted that District 3 initiated the Diagnostic Reading Center in the 2nd grade.

She rebutted Tim's comment that the district doesn't teach reading after the 3rd grade, stating that she said that they teach reading through the 3rd grade, then they teach reading to learn in the following grades. She noted that the average of 3rd graders reading below grade level tested at a 2.6 grade level.

"But are those kids getting outside help?", asked Tim.

Board Vice-President Doris Sadik noted that the issue of reading education has been addressed by the Board many, many times, saying that is how the Diagnostic Reading Center came about.

In response, Tim Kassel said that his daughter is allowed to journal in reading lab. He said that he knows that reading and writing are related, but that the reading time should be used for what it's for.

Supt. Hill commented that we have good teachers here. Dr. Krause said that a reknowned consultant had come in the past to look at our reading program.

I thought it was odd that, again, the administration was stressing that we have good teachers. Mr. Kassel stated at least once during the discussion that he wasn't challenging the quality of the teachers, but that it's the teaching programs and testing methods that need to be looked at. I felt that the comments that we have good teachers, true as it was, was getting off the point.

Board member Pat Hughes asked Mr. Kassel if he wanted the Board to ask along other grades, to see how many students are receiving outside tutoring. Supt. Hill responded that outside tutoring doesn't mean that the district is not doing its job. Hughes followed by asking about tracking this 3rd grade class.

Dr. Tim Mahaffy said that he had just attended a reading seminar with a reading teacher. He said that the seminar drilled the idea that reading to kids was a good tool for parents to use to promote reading.

Dr. Mahaffy said that he looked at the test scores of students who tested below average in 3rd grade, and met with the 4th grade teachers to discuss what to do for these students. He noted that our reading teachers are always looking for innovative ways to teach.

Vice-President Sadik asked Mr. Kassel if he had spoken with his son's teachers. Mr. Kassel said that he was told that his son would always be rated as reading below grade level, because he's in the lower-level reading class.

Board member Bob Nunamaker stated that "we all agree we have good teachers." (Thank you, Bob!) He said that the Board has looked at its reading program, sometimes at the expense of other programs, such as Social Studies. He asked, how can the district provide more meaningful feedback to parents about their students?

Vice-President Sadik responded to the issue of report card grades, saying that they have talked about that issue in focus groups. Mr. Kassel said that even his son's teachers were surprised at the score of "Average" on the reading test done at District 3. Dr. Krause mentioned that Mr. Kassel's son was tested twice by the district and was found to be deficient in certain areas, but was not at the bottom.

Board member Kay Laube challenged the notion of outside tutoring being sought only in response to below-grade performance, and suggested that some tutoring may be done by competitiveness among parents. "I would get tutoring for a straight-A student if I was competing with a North Shore school," she commented.

Board member Gerry Blohm added to Laube's comments, saying that he can't say why these parents decide to seek outside tutoring. He said that tutoring is a "personal choice", and wondered how this choice reflects on the school.

On the issue of the Board members casting few "no" votes on motions in the past year, Blohm said that the Board has not rested on its laurels. He said the Board is always challenging the schools to do better. "Rest assured, we are constantly looking to improve." He said that he carefully considers every vote he casts, and mentioned that two different people in two weeks have now mentioned to him that the Board members always vote alike. But, he said, that Supt. Hill and the school administration comes to Board meetings with "their homework done." He says that they have anticipated the Board's questions and have looked at every option to the Board's satisfaction, prior to a motion being raised.

As someone who has attended Board meeting pretty steadily over the past year or so, I can say that votes don't always reflect Board members opinions; at least, not in my view. I have seen motions discussed quite vigorously, and pointed questions asked by members, prior to votes being cast. When writing summaries of Board meetings, I have tried to reflect these discussions and opinions when they are expressed. But Mr. Kassel is correct that many, many motions are approved unanimously. Sometimes these votes are with an attitude of, "I don't like it, but I guess we have to do it." The votes, however, are what they are. Like testing of students, they are not the end-all of evaluating the Board, but they are a useful measure to use in evaluation.

April 25th Board Meeting - Q&A

I apologize for the delay in getting these items posted. April and May are proving to be busy months for me..... Hopefully, as some activities go on hiatus for the summer, I'll be able to get these in on a more timely basis.

Tim Kassel addressed the Board in the Q&A portion of the meeting. Tim, very graciously, wrote of this and posted to the Partnership for Schools e-mail group. If you are not a member of the e-mail group (and you're missing some of the dialogue about District 3 if you're not!), I'm posting Tim's e-mail here. If you are on the e-mail list, you've (hopefully) already read Tim's comments.

Since I was at the meeting, I'll post my observations in a separate item.

From Tim Kassel:

I addressed the board at the last meeting. In a nutshell, my point
was that I think there's a significant number of kids being left
behind by our school system. I told the story of how my third grade
son has been bringing home report cards for the last 2 years, on
which he has recieved C's and B's in reading, but always with an
annotation that he is reading below grade level. We persued having
him tested by Mrs. Yester to see if there was any indication that he
made need additional help. It took nearly 2 months before the
testing could be done. But when we finally got the results, he had
tested very "average". When my wife discussed the results with his
two thrid grade teachers, they both expressed surprise at how well
he had tested.

We took it to the next level over the Christmas break and had him
tested at Huntington Learning Center. They assessed his reading
ability at the 2.3 grade level(3rd month of the 2nd grade), where he
should have been at 3.5. We have since enrolled him in an extensive
tutoring program and he is showing improvement. My wife and I met
with Dr. Krause and relayed our concern that there may be issues
that need to be addressed at a systemic level to avoid having more
kids fall behind like this. We were cordially thanked for bringing
it to her attention, but we got the impression that nothing further
would come of it.

Well this turn of events peaked my curiousity and I began to wonder
how many students were also seeking outside help just to get caught
up. I did some telephone surveying of our 3rd grader's parents and
found 7 out of 45 people surveyed had their kids enrolled in some
form of outside tutoring. 2 more said they were giving is serious
consideration. That 15.5% and 20% of the sample that are either in
tutoring or considering it, respectively.

I brought these numbers before the board to raise the issue that our
school system may be missing something at the lower performance
levels. The school segregates readers by ability at the lower grade
levels. In these lower groups, the kids can receive passing grades
and move from one grade to the next, all the while, the school does
nothing to address the fact that they're reading below grade level.
We were told in parent teacher conferences that the focus of all of
these lower reading groups was to be caught up to the same level as
the middle reading group by year end. This apparently is not
happening, because most of the same kids end up in the lower group
the following year.

I pointed to the school's testing and teaching methods as a possible
area of improvement to focus on. Of course class size is likely
another factor, and I pointed out that we've apparently got the
resources to teach Spanish to our 7th and 8th graders while 1st -
3rd graders are falling behind on reading, but I did not want to
turn this into another budget discussion. So I asked the board to
direct the administration to carry out a study to better understand
what's happening among our kids that may not be performing that well
and find out how big of a problem is really is.

I also raised one more issue... I went through the board meeting
minutes from the past year and counted how many motions were raised
and what the resulting votes were. 173 motions, 100% of them
passed, 98% of them passed uninimously. A total of 3 "no" votes in
all. I remarked that I couldn't believe that the board members so
rarely had a difference of opinion... or perhaps they haven't been
addressing the "tough issues." I asked them to challenge the
adninistration and challenge themselves.

Dr. Krause was volunteered to lead the reponse discussion. She
began by distributing standardized test score results to those in
attendance and spoke of how well the school is doing relative to the
state and national averages and also presented evidence indicating
year-on-year improvement in average test scores. Mr. Hill chimed in
numerous times exhalting our teachers as highly skilled educators.

Of course, my point had little to do with the grand mean of
standardized test scores, nor did I intent to indict the ability of
our teachers. But I replied by saying that I did not mean to cast
dispersions upon the teaching staff, but they are working within a
system that allows them to award B's and C's and continually advance
students that are reading below grade level.

Gerry Blohm addressed the board voting history by indicating that he
was slightly taken aback by the implication that his vote was a
rubber stamp. He mentioned that someone else had mentioned almost
the same numbers in to him in the last 2 weeks... (I hadn't compiled
my numbers until the day before - so it didn't come from me.) But he
defended his voting record by complimenting the adminstration for
coming to the board meetings with their "homework done." So that by
the time a motion gets to voted on, the issues are usually all
resolved.

Some of the board members made some other comments, indicating (at
least, this was my impression) some willingness to examine the
grading system and possibly the testing system.

Now this report is based on my recollection of what was said - not
always the most reliable source - because I was involved in the
discussion, not taking notes. A more accurate source (and one
without the embedded editoial) may be the meeting minutes as posted
on the District 3 website, but they won't be up until after the next
board meeting so check that out if you're intrigued by the subject
matter.

Finally, I gathered my thoughts on the feedback I heard and composed
an email to the board members with cc to the administration. I've
included it below - note that it specifically requests a couple of
items be placed on the agenda for this month. If there's no mention
of these when the next agenda is posted, I'll be addressing the
board again. Keep an eye out for the agenda - more community
support of this issue could help. Read below to see specifically
what I've asked for.
____________________________________________
District 3 Board Members,

I want to thank you for the thoughtful discussion that took place
Monday night in response the issues I brought up. I have a few
thoughts I'd like to share with you now that I've had an opportunity
to digest the feedback.

My impression is the board and the administration appear reluctant
to accept the validity of the number of students seeking outside
tutoring as an indicator of the effectiveness of our school system's
ability to keep students from falling behind. I think some valid
points were made as to some of the other possible motivations some
parents may have for pursuing tutoring for their children.
Personally, I don't really think that's what's going on at our lower
grade levels, but I'll accept the argument as valid nonetheless.

As an alternative approach, I'd like to propose a study of the
school's own report card records. Particularly, how many of our
students are being scored as Reading Below Grade Level (RBGL), and
what have been their corresponding letter grades? There are several
telling metrics that can be pursued with this data:

· # of students RBGL in the 1st grading period vs. # of
students RBGL in the 4th grading period

· # of students RBGL in 1st grade vs. # of students RBGL in
2nd grade of the following year, and so on, up to 4th grade. I'd
like to see this data tracked over the last 5 to 7 years for trend
analysis

· letter grade progression of RBGL students though the
school year vs. progression from RBGL to Reading At Grade Level

Similar data for math scores would be useful, but there does not
appear to be a line item on the report cards for performance at or
below grade level in math. However, the math classes are separated
by ability in the lower grade levels. Tracking the size of the
lower group as the kids progress through the grades could also serve
as an indicator.

Through my profession I have obtained a Six Sigma Black Belt,
meaning that I have been trained in, and have successfully applied,
advanced methods of statistical analysis for process improvements.
Often times you can make an incorrect conclusion about two sets data
of being different from one another by just looking at their
averages. You have to look at the spread of the data and how they
overlap to determine if there is a statistically significant
difference. I have the tools and skills to do this and would like
to volunteer my services to analyze this data.

As Dr. Krause pointed out, our standardized test scores as compared
to state and national averages are good (I agree), and using my
tutoring numbers as an example, she asked, "What about the other 80%
that aren't experiencing a problem?" Focusing on averages and the
majority can make it easy to miss what's happening at the extremes
of the population. I would suspect the reading labs and other
changes implemented in the last few years that were mentioned by Mr.
Hill and Dr. Krause were architected with the general population in
mind as well. The study I am proposing is obviously not focused on
the kids that are doing well in our current system. The intent is
to take a closer look at what's happening with children that may be
underperforming, determine how large or small of an issue it really
is, and possibly make some focused changes to better protect, what
may be a significant number of kids, from falling behind.

I am formally requesting that the pursuit of this study be placed on
the agenda for the next board meeting.

Finally, I would like to clarify an apparent misunderstanding that
was relayed by Mr. Hill on Monday night with regard to the seating
arrangement in reading circles. My comments to Dr. Krause were not
related to reading circles. I expressed concern over the everyday
arrangement of the desks in the classroom. The desks are arranged
in patterns where the children are grouped together, primarily
facing one another. Some children are more easily distracted than
others and I know my son is one of them. But I also know, through
my experience as a rec-council coach, he's not the only one.
Sometimes it's hard to hold the attention of a group of 9-year-olds
for 3 minutes – even with a referee's whistle – and that's just a
ten-person soccer team. Now, place a more easily distracted child
who is reading below grade level in a classroom of 25-30 students,
and have him face one of his buddies instead of the front of the
class, where the teacher is, and what do you expect the results will
be? As I said Monday, my wife, Cynthia, volunteers in the
classrooms a lot and has seen this environment first hand, and has
commented to me on how often she sees children talking amongst
themselves when they should be paying attention to the teacher.
Perhaps the board members could take some time to see this for
themselves as well. Maybe 80% of our kids can thrive in an
environment like this, but I can't help thinking that it's
contributes negatively to the progress of the others. What if we
could turn 80% to 85% or more just by rearranging the seats?

Again, I appreciate your thoughtful consideration on these issues
and look forward to hearing this addressed at the next board
meeting. Feel free to contact me at home (847-639-0285) or via
email with any comments or questions.

Regards,
Tim Kassel