Wednesday Houlihans Jan 11th recap

This past week, we had Nathaniel Banks, Chuck Jackson and myself. I learned a bit and I hope I get most of it here.

One of the issues we discussed is the top-down management style prevalent in Unit 4 Administration. An example at Stratton was used whereby a majority of parent’s wanted to retain the longer school day, but the teachers (allegedly represented by the teachers union, the Champaign Federation of Teachers) did not. It sounds like the CFT approached Administration and eliminated the longer days. From what I hear, the parent’s were not involved in the decision making process at all. In another example,

Unit 4 BOE putting agendas online

Back in May, Mr. Tommy Lockman informed me that Unit 4 was going to start putting the BOE documents online:

www.boarddocs.com/il/champil/Board.nsf/public

 

I meant to make a post about it, but never did. *sigh* Anyway, when I received the latest note that the BOE put their agenda for the September 12th meeting up, I went to take a gander. And I am impressed. While it is understandable that some agenda items are merely placeholders, there is a good amount of detail in things like 4.B. “Recognitions”, 8.B,C,D (Reports/Discussion), and others. 8.B. caught my attention. Administrative Salaries and Benefits. I am not going to witch hunt right now, but I know others have had to FOIA this information in the past, so I see it as a good step that Unit 4 is putting it out there. A good step, I said.

 

Other goodies in there. 8.C Report on the EEE. I am torn about this. Here are the posted “top recommendations”:

• Provide high quality professional development for both academic and non-academic staff focused on teaching and supporting students of diverse backgrounds.
• Create safe and competent spaces for staff to engage in ongoing discussions of diversity issues (particularly, but not limited to race and racism).  One model is Learning Communities.  It could be organized to make opportunities available
• Create safe and competent settings for students to express what they are experiencing in school.  Provide opportunities for students to develop and express voice and resistance.
• Develop and provide elective for credit courses at the high school level that identify and develop venues for students to critically engage issues of social history and race.

 

So these are all good. But here is the problem. Dr. Mark Aber recommended these back in 2000 and again in 2009 (which did not get “published” until 2011). Where are the “safe settings”? I mean, come on! All I see is talk. Where is the walk?

 

But this isn’t a post about the EEE, per se. That really needs its own post. Glad to see more information available online.

 

8.D. Preliminary report on finances. Holy documentation, Batman! A 67-page report!? Yikes. My hat is off to whomever put this massive thing together. But 67 pages?!? Who is supposed to read that? Again, I give credit to the author(s) for making these 10lb doorstops (funny old anachronism, eh?) a little more palatable; a sprinkling of graphs, some “slightly-easier-to-read” pages, and especially the last 7 pages, the “Conclusion”. In very “Promises made, Promises kept”-esque fashion, each objective of the report is detailed with examples of how the goal was met. I like that. And then I start to read them a little closer. Let’s take a look at that last objective:

5. secure community understanding and support of the fiscal requirements of a good educational program.

Examples of How the Board’s Goals Were Met:

• Budget Presentation – “Where Does All the Money Go?”
• … [ skipped because I have to type all this by hand ]
• Implemented “Promises Made, Promises Kept” Committee to increase confidence in the District
• Implemented “Facilities Committee” to continue work of the Vision Committee
• Quarterly meetings of the Key Communicators Network to keep parents informed of Unit Four news

 

Each of those are old. I mean, that does not make less of them, but they are not new by any means. One could copy’n'paste this exact same thing into next year’s 2012-2013 Budget document. And yes, I am picking on this one for a reason. The other objectives have more concrete goals that have been achieved (and accompanying examples).

 

Why am I picking on this one? Well, let me ask, was the community’s understanding and support of the fiscal requirements of a good educational program secured? And is it appropriate that the measure of this goal having been attained are things that the Board and Administration did several years ago?

 

Unit 4 has an image problem, among other issues. Putting the Agendas and all this information online does indeed increase transparency. Due to this increased transparency, we can see some holes. What do you do when you see holes. Hopefully you patch them up. Putting all this stuff online does not instamagically mean that everyone knows the score. In fact, I only stumbled (in the true sense of web stumbling) upon these items because I was curious. Finding golden nuggets buried in Meeting Minutes and Agendas does not seem optimal. Depending on bloggers, online magazines and news papers to tout your qualities (and/or expose your weaknesses) also does not seem optimal.

 

So here is my own conclusion. Kudos to Unit 4 for moving in this direction. I realize it is a small step. Now it is the obligation of the community and the school district to collaborate (which means “work together“, to co-labor) on patching up the holes. Or tear it down completely and start anew. *grin*

 

Follow-up to Family Engagement

This started out as a comment, but it made more sense to promote it to a full-blown post.

re: http://champaignunit4.wordpress.com/2011/05/15/family-engagement/

Unfortunately, I did not find the documents I was looking for. But I did stumble upon a host of other research; in particular, a partnership between PTA and the Harvard Family Research Project. This site is actually quite amazing, if rather dry and dull to read. Here are two papers I have read recently:

• Seeing is Believing
• Data Systems transform Family Engagment (Chicago)

As I think about it, the argument is not whether or not Family Engagement is worthwhile or important, but rather “What can we do about it?” How do you engage families from very diverse backgrounds, whether they are a dual-income, ultra-professional, busy-all-the-time family or a single parent working two or more jobs just to put food on the table?

The only thing that comes to mind is community partnerships. Where those that have the time and resources can help engage children of parents that do not have the time and resources (or choose to spend them elsewhere). It’s not a blame game, but rather, how can we all work together to help us all be better.

Personally, I do not find it hard at all to blame the values of our society for our current economic and political morass. Which should be clear from the first post.

So what next?

We have to accept that the current system is broken. Yes, there are some good things about it, so let us identify and hang on to that which is favorable. For instance, we have some ties to the University in our backyard – they send over students to interact with our children for Fun Days, Carnivals, Tutoring and mentoring. We benefit from some of the research (Dr. Mark Aber comes to mind). We also have the Champaign Urbana Schools Foundation which organizes generous gifts and incentives to reward outstanding individuals. We have lots of amazing folks striving mightily to reach the needs of our children. But the brokenness is clearly demonstrated by such symptoms as poorly attended forums, board meetings and PTA.

After that, we have to be serious about reform. In some ways, I wonder if it would behoove us to obliterate the school district (the burdensome policies especially) and start from scratch. When thinking about reform, it is way too tempting to think about our limits, to be trapped inside the box of “that’s how we have always done it”. Want a practical step? Bring back “Great Schools, Together” with a passion. Breathe new life into it. It had a lot of potential at the beginning. Tie that in with Imani Bazzell’s work with “Great Campus”. Both efforts have shown that we have a tremendous amount of skilled and intelligent people who really want to see Unit 4 thrive. Why are we not tapping into them?

Empower school principals and teachers to be the face of the school district. Do not saddle them with rituals, policies and rules that create busywork. Hire somebody else to do that. Even in the context of online information – why are local schools burdened with coming up with their own PTA web resources? And to carry that further, why does the district not have a webmaster who is in touch with the latest technology? The public needs to know they can reach out and connect to school officials (email, website, phone, snail mail, face to face) and be confident that they are heard.

Finally, the idea of “Board Meetings” needs to be revamped. I understand that the district has business to do, and that there are many many many hours devoted to keeping the system running. But the BOE members and public-facing staff are overwhelmed with “business”, which saps their time, energy and strength from being public-facing. Streamline the business so it happens like clockwork, and devote more time to engaging the community. Lynn Peisker has done a good job putting a pretty face on Unit 4, and Sue Grey has started to put grit into the words of improving that image – in a way, they are working backwards and trying to draw the public in. This is a good approach, and I sincerely hope it works, but at some point their efforts are going to hit the brick wall of District Business.

Which is where a new Superintendent comes into play. We have to be clear about our priorities as a community. We have to want Family Engagement and Communication to near the top of the list. In fact, I personally would place those two values much higher than School Performance – in my mind, performance follows engagement like night following day. We have to make sure that we reject (actively, vehemently) any candidate that does not match our criteria and do whatever we can to grab hold of the one who does.

Ok now I am rambling. More to follow. Later.

Another invitation to come talk about Climate in Unit 4

I still have not found this in the NG – grrr!! And while Unit 4 technically added an agenda to the website, it is buried and not even announced!

http://www.champaignschools.org/EEE/agenda_2011-04-07.pdf

Thursday, April 7th

4:pm

Mellon Center

Later (ie, tomorrow) when I feel more awake, I’ll elaborate more on the questions I have been chewing on. My two big questions are:

1. When is Unit 4 going to respond to this? Not in words, but in action.
2. I want to get a few forums started. When and where? Not at the Mellon Center! But it would be great if Unit 4 folks came out.

If you want to come prepared, here is what I suggested to the EEE Committee members:

If you have not had a chance to take a peek at it, I strongly urge you to do so. Even if you only have time to read over the Recommendations (pages 5-7) and possibly the section on Discussion (pages 36-59).

Please tell others.

http://champaignunit4.wordpress.com/2009-climate-survey/

ACCESS Initiative

It’s late, and I have another post I want to put up, but I’ll discuss this more later. Mark Aber suggested I look at this, and I really like what I see so far.

http://www.ccrpc.org/socialservices/cds.php

The ACCESS Initiative focuses on diverting juvenile offenders or high risk youth from involvement in juvenile courts. We do this by taking referrals of youth involved in delinquent activity and providing an alternative to prosecution through case management. Our Case Managers screen juvenile offenders referred to our program to identify issues that may have influenced the offense. They link these youth to services to best address presenting issues.

What I like about this, if I read it correctly, is that it attempts to break of pattern of those who might normally cycle in and out of jail. This cycle is sickening to me, since our current prison facilities are not “correctional” nor rehabilative in any sense of the word – they are merely stewing pots that harshly punish folks for breaking laws and spit them back out.

To take this a step further, what I really want to see is the community embrace children who have different learning styles, those who do not excel in our current, hi-tech, modern, standardized teaching format. I would love to see mentors and volunteer tutors explode a hundred-fold, all in an effort to give caring attention to our future leaders. I do not want us to depend on some big, heavy-handed, one-size-fits-all bureaucracy.

Oops, I digress. Anyway, go read that stuff about ACCESS Initiative and form your own opinions.

Climate and Equity

I looked for a public notice and was unable to find one, but I have heard from two involved parties that the School District is planning a special (early) EEE (Education Equity Excellence) Committee meeting to discuss Dr. Aber’s 2009 Climate Study.

Thursday, April 7th

4:pm

Mellon Center

I am seriously considering going, especially if there is to be more of an open-discussion format, as opposed to a litany of reports and a monologue. Anyone else interested? If not, please continue to read. *grin*

Dr. Aber’s Study raises some very interesting yet subtle points. One the one hand, it would appear that the overall Climate has not changed much since the 2000 Study, despite the fact that much of the Administration is completely different (not to mention the School Board) and giant purple elephant of the Consent Decree is no longer stomping around in the middle of the room. A majority of the Whites still seem to hold on to terms like “color blind” and “reverse discrimination”, while Blacks decry a systematic racism that seems obvious to them. I would be very curious how the Latinos and other groups feel. On the other hand, there are some uniquely challenging opportunities that seem to spark with hope and progress. For example, a good portion of Dr. Aber’s Study branches out to talk about the impact of the Consent Decree and racism in general. In light of these big issues, Dr. Aber’s team held several focus groups after the Study was compiled and the respondents were given a chance to digest the bigger picture. This in particular opened up avenues of communication and made it obvious that some folks were simply not comfortable speaking their minds, either in their normal, day-to-day school lives or in the survey responses.

Another point which become obvious is that there is a huge blame game going on. Everyone is a victim and wants to project their failures unto something external; a system, a people group, sometimes even individuals. While I believe there is some merit at the root of these accusations (our environment has a bit of an impact on who we are), we must bear responsibility for ourselves. If there is an institutional problem, why not work together to address it? Are we not all human?

Dr. Aber, in both the 2000 and the 2009 Study, made strong recommendations for safe environments where opinions could be fleshed out, ideas put on the table and thoughts discussed. I think we can all agree that this in itself will not solve the problem of racism, inter-community conflict and a struggling School District. But I have to believe it is at least a step in the right direction.

There is a whole lot going on with Climate Studies. It is a lot to digest, but if you take it slowly and start with the Summary and work towards the Discussion section, I think it becomes manageable.

And this is where the Education Equity Excellence Committee comes in. Yeah, you thought I had totally digressed, eh? =)

Dr. Aber will be presenting this stuff to the EEE on April 7th. I dearly hope it is not a pure lecture format. I am pushing for more discussion, a chance to get the community involved. I hope the Committee members take the time to read at least a few pages of the Study and have questions, observations, comments and thoughts of their own. The EEE was intentionally diverse, and it seems like a good cross-section to discuss these kinds of issues. Since this is a special meeting called for this particular purpose (as a result of the Study being published), I hope they can focus on that.

So, are you going?