School Board Newsletter #49, December 18, 1998

Return to School e-mail archive directory

Subj: School Issues Newsletter #49
Date: 12/18/98 4:36:36 PM EST
From: jklagge@bev.net (Jim Klagge)

Dear Friends,

I thought I would try to get in a letter before people disperse for the holidays. I will address a few other issues before I get to the BMS discussion:

1) Substitute Teachers: Many school districts have been having trouble getting enough subs. This is a direct result of the strong economy, and of our requirement of a bachelor's degree. We voted to accept students getting a bachelor's who are training in education as acceptable subs. But perhaps advertising would help too, which we have not done. Please help us: If you know people with a bachelor's degree who are in transition and could use flexible temporary work that can be quite rewarding (and frustrating sometimes!) and pays reasonably well, please suggest that they put their names in to the school system to be a sub.

2) Discipline Report Follow-up Committee: Nearly a year ago the SB received the report done of the study of whether punishment of disciplined students was equitable by race. In general the answer was that it was not systematically inequitable, though there were many issues raised by the report concerning differences by race and income of how often students got in trouble. The SB decided to appoint a task force to look into these issues further, for they touched on many important topics in our schools, families and community. One community leader said to me at the time that he didn't see why we didn't just drop the issue since the report showed no systematic inequities. But instead this report and the follow-up by the task force have been a tremendous opportunity to address deep seated and long-standing problems, including racial ones, that have been ignored for too long. The NAACP was very helpful in leading and recruiting people to be involved with this work, and each secondary school has also committed their administrators and a teacher and parent to this task force. The people who were most affected by the problems have been directly involved with trying to find the solutions. We have met on almost a monthly basis, several times now, and made tremendous progress in the eyes of ALL who have been involved. In addition to general improvements in communication and consciousness-raising, we have sent 9 people to a weekend conference in Richmond on improving involvement and achievement of minority students, we are getting members of the black community to go with our personnel recruiters to job fairs around the region, we have established site-based groups at each of the secondary schools to extend the work we have started into the schools and begin to involve students and more parents directly. And we have recently attracted the interest of two philanthropic foundations who are impressed by our work and would like to consider ways that they can support our work.

3) BMS: There has been a lot of rumbling, but not a lot has happened since my last letter on this front. Still it may be worth trying to explain the rumbling. As you surely do know, the BoS on 11/23, by a 4-3 vote, rejected our request to build a new MS in Blacksburg and renovate the current one. Listening to the discussion before that vote, it was clear that different people were voting against it for different reasons (some seemed to oppose having 2 MS's in Blacksburg, others seemed to want a new HS). It wasn't clear to me that there was any position we could advocate at that point that would get approval from a majority of the BoS. So in response, and after considerable discussion, the SB voted, on 12/1, to ask the BoS to reconsider its rejection. This could happen only if one of those voting against it had changed his vote--but this gave people a chance for further discussion and consideration. And, in any case, the SB was not prepared to make a new recommendation right off the tops of our heads. Clearly a lot of lobbying occured, and also the Blacksburg Town Council voted unanimously to support our resolution. At the BoS meeting on Monday the motion was not reconsidered, but the issue was discussed. Also the BoS moved to purchase the 30 acre site adjacent to Kipps (for which we are grateful). The BoS decided to seek a joint meeting with the SB in January to discuss this whole issue. At our meeting on Tuesday the SB asked the Liaison committee to create an agenda for such a meeting before the SB would endorse it. There was concern that it not simply be an occasion on which the BoS told the SB what to do. We are in the process of forming this agenda, and I am optimistic that we can approve it at our 1/5 meeting. The joint meeting would likely be 1/18, at a place yet to be determined, and it would be open to the public.

In our resolution that asked the BoS to reconsider their rejection, we carefully set out, as a series of "Whereas" clauses, some points that we thought were important, and most properly decided by the SB. These were the importance of having two middle schools in Blacksburg, both for accommodation of future growth and for the educational value of reasonably small-sized schools for that age students. In addition to this the SB is committed to the need for MS facilities to be adequately renovated, if not new. And finally, we are committed to solving the MS facility problem as expeditiously as we can. Although we judged that the best way to address these concerns was to build a new MS and renovate the current one, that proposal has been defeated and I assume it will stay defeated. We gave it our best shot, and I appreciate the time and energy that many people put into going to meetings, speaking at meetings, talking one-on-one, and trying in every other way to get that passed. What do we do now?

Some of the supervisors have been pushing to build a new HS in Blacksburg instead. Along with that, various suggestions have been made such as use the current HS as a MS, or as a second MS, with some amount of renovation. Something along these lines could conceivably work to meet the SB concerns set out in the previous paragraph. The devil, as they say, is in the details--and it is also in the process by which such decisions are made.

Here are some of the issues, as I see them:
-Building a new HS and then using the current HS and current MS for 2 MS's is certainly financially efficient in the long-run. It involves building only one new facility in the Blacksburg area, and it would allow for renovated space for all MS students. I think it is the financial efficiency of this that is driving most BoS members.

-The space needs do not currently exist at the HS level, and probably won't for a few or several years. The space needs do exist in a very pressing way now at the MS level. How fast would the MS space needs be met if we build a new HS, as compared with building a new MS? We really need to see timetables to compare. Just for the sake of comparison (DO NOT QUOTE THESE FIGURES), things could (optimistically) work out like this:

-Start new HS Summer, 1999, to be completed by summer, 2001

Renovate current HS beginning summer 2001, to be completed summer 2002

Renovate current MS beginning summer 2002, to be completed summer 2003 or 2004.

This does not address the question where MS students would be at various stages of renovation, but it provides adequate space for all MS, and all HS students by 2003 or 2004.

-Start new MS Summer, 1999, to be completed by summer, 2001

Renovate current MS beginning summer 2001, to be completed summer 2002 or 2003. This does not address the question of where MS students would be during renovation, but it does provide adequate space for all MS students by 2002 or 2003. Regardless of what the actual timetable would be, it does look as though the SB plan would provide a solution to the middle school problem a year faster, the other plan solves the problem a year later but also solves a problem that doesn't yet exist but would at some time have existed. As you can see, this is a genuine judgement call. I think trade-offs like this are sometimes possible, but they should be trade-offs that the SB decides on, not that are decided for us.

-What constitues adequate renovation? In my last newsletter I included the letter we sent to the BoS about whether the current BHS could be used as a MS. That was not based on a professional study, which we did not have the time or money to commission, but was a statement based on impressions, experience and discussion with educators. And what kinds of renovations would be adequate for the current BMS to be used as a good 600-800 student facility? These are important and difficult questions. Important because the SB has a special concern for the needs of MS students at BMS right now. We don't want their needs to be lost in the shuffle of building and financing a new HS, so it is important that we be able to spell out and assure adequately renovated facilities for them. But the issue is also difficult because the BoS has to fund those renovations, so we need to develop and specify what is "adequate" in a way that the community can acknowledge and back. I think there is a suspicion on the BoS that anything beyond minor repairs is luxurious and excessive, so we need to be able to develop and make a strong case for what we request, and then be able to all get behind that. I think the SB would probably work with an outside firm, and its own adnministrators, and teachers, parents and community members to develop this. We need to work out in a publicly justifiable way what the parameters of adequacy are for these buildings. -If the BMS problem is to be solved as part of a larger strategy that involves the HS first, how can we be assured now that the steps down the road are taken later? I think it is uncertainty about this issue that has been a stumbling block to the SB in considering other strategies.

-And finally, which boards have authority to make decisions about which of these issues? Apart from the problem of which strategy is best, there is also the problem of how to assure that each board has its proper role in these decisions respected. A very stark way of dividing this up is to say that the BoS has authority over finances, and the SB has authority over educational issues. But the BoS also has the authority to assure itself that its finances would be spent in an efficient fashion, so this inevitably leads to some fuzzy boundaries. These fuzzy boundaries have caused so much conflict over the years all around the state, that some have called for granting SB's their own financial authority to tax. Others resist this. This year the SB has asked our state legislators to create a task force to examine the issue of giving SB's financial authority. But, in the meantime, we continue to and need to find ways of working with this fuzzy boundary in a healthy way. (This is why there was controversy over the wording of the final provision in the resolution the BoS was considering and tabled twice and finally defeated.)

I hope that at a joint meeting the BoS could set out its funding parameters for the Blacksburg strand, and the SB could set out its educational priorities for the Blacksburg strand, and then we could agree on a strategy that meets both those conditions.

In my first newsletters in February, 1996 I discussed how the SB was trying to get the BoS to buy 40 acres of land in Riner for a new elementary school and space for expansion of the current HS. And I explained that this was an issue that affected ALL Montgomery County residents, not just those in Riner. Because it was an issue of whether the SB judgements about educational needs would be taken seriously. This issue in the Blacksburg strand is also of concern to ALL county residents because, again, it is an issue of what the proper role of BoS and SB are. I am not advocating that we insist on getting our way on the MS first issue. But I am advocating that the SB's judgements about what is educationally important here (namely, 2 MS's, adequately renovated, and expeditiously provided) be given its proper due. I hope that the joint meeting can allow both boards to define and exercise their own proper roles, and allow and acknowledge the other board's proper role. That may sound pedantic, but it is essential for a healthy political atmosphere in this county.

I often refer back to past newsletters. If you have lost track of these, or joined this mailing list since that letter, you can always find past letters in an archive maintained by Mike Ewing of Riner, who is on the Planning Commission. I want to thank Mike for his interest in my letters and for providing this service. You can access the archives at www.gisone.com/schools.htm.

Hope you and your family have a Merry Christmas and a peaceful and productive New Year,

Jim Klagge.
Chair and District F Representative
Montgomery County School Board.

email: admin@gisone.com