Category — School Board

The piece below was found on Facebook and it’s being republished with the permission of the author.

The school board should use it as a guide when looking for a new superintendent (which I wish they would do).

Here are 12 killers of good leadership:

Defensiveness – Good leaders don’t wear their feelings on their shoulders. They know other’s opinions matter and aren’t afraid to be challenged.

Jealousy – A good leader enjoys watching others on the team excel.

Revenge – The leader that succeeds for the long term must be forgiving and knows that “getting even” only comes back to harm them and the organization.

Fearfulness – The good leader remains committed when no one else is and must take risks no one else will. Others will follow. That’s what leaders do.

Favoritism – Good leaders don’t have favorites on the team. They reward for results not partiality.

Ungratefulness – Good leaders value people, knowing they cannot attain success without others.

Small-mindedness – Good leaders think bigger than today. They are dreamers and idea people.

Pridefulness – Pride comes before the fall. Good leaders remain humbled by the position of authority entrusted to them.

Rigidity – There are some things to be rigid about, such as values and vision, but for most issues, the leader must be open to change. Good leaders welcome new ideas, realizing that most everything can be improved.

Laziness – One can’t be a good leader and not be willing to work hard. In fact, the leader should be willing to be the hardest worker on the team.

Unresponsiveness – Good leaders don’t lead from behind closed doors. They are responsive to the needs and desires of those they attempt to lead. They respond to concerns and questions. They collaborate more than control. Leaders who close themselves off from those they lead will limit the places where others will follow.

Dishonesty – Since character counts highest, a good leader must be above reproach. When a leader fails, he or she must admit their mistake and work towards restoration.

A leader may struggle with one or more of these, but the goal should be to lead “killer-free.” Leader, be honest, which of these wrecking balls do you struggle with most?

As you probably know, the PPS board has changed the structure and time of their board meetings.  They meet more often as an entire board instead of holding subcommittee meetings along with the regular board meetings.  The meetings start at 5:00 now (so convenient for most parents).

Did you know that the board has also changed the location of their meetings?  They now meet in what they call the “Windows Conference Room” AKA the Dixon Diner.  The meeting location is ridiculous.  It’s very small, no seating, the sound is bad and it isn’t conducive to citizen testimony.  The BESC has a Board Room.  Why aren’t they using it?

The Windows Conference Room is located on the second floor of the BESC.  When I arrived at the board meeting tonight, there was a sign on the main doors that said the meeting was upstairs but ALL of the doors were locked.

I waited outside for 10 minutes then snuck in as someone was leaving.  Once upstairs, I let Dennis Tune (head of PPS security) know that the doors were locked.  He disappeared for a few minutes saying he would take care of it.  Meanwhile, district administrators apologized for the locked doors.

About an hour later, I went downstairs and found the doors locked again.  This time someone else was outside trying to get in to go to the meeting.  I went back upstairs and told Dennis that the doors were locked again.  He looked at his watch and told me that they couldn’t leave the building accessible to all so it was going to stay locked.  He should have sat at the main doors to let people in.  They advertised a “public meeting”.

Does the board want community involvement or not?  Nothing says welcome like locked doors.

Parents, while your high school students are sitting in crowded required study halls, PPS is hiring another central office administrator.

The district is hiring a Senior Manager for the Board of Education.  The position pays $70,805-$85,320.  The board already has a secretary.

Does the board really need a “liaison for Board members to district staff”?  Or someone who “responds to requests for information from Board members regarding district policy and operations, coordinates with district staff to research, analyze and present findings to Board members as required.”  Aren’t the people who run the departments responsible for following up on board information requests?

This position would also be responsible for assuming “primary responsibility for the coordination of the Board’s external meetings and outreach, with other local and statewide elected leaders and school districts, community groups, parent groups, the business community, etc., including the preparation of materials and talking points for Board members attending external meetings.”  Why couldn’t someone from the bloated Communications Department do this?

I agree that board members should have support for their work but this all sounds to me like work that could be picked up by current district staff.  Teachers, classroom assistants and lower level central office staff have had to pick up extra responsibilities over the years.  Why can’t upper management do the same?

Anyone watching tonight’s school board meeting?  There seems to be a little tension over the new governance model.  I would love to have heard the conversations that took place behind the scenes.

School Board Meeting, March 14, 2011

Here’s something you should be concerned about.  In Portland we are developing a school system that is similar to the separate but equal schools in the South in the 1950’s. Only the determiner is not color of skin but financial circumstance.  And the main differences are manifested not just in things which have been discussed for the last few years, but in the curriculums within the schools themselves.

We have two types of curriculum. In schools in more well-to-do neighborhoods where we don’t have to worry about test scores we often have a vibrant, comprehensive and relevant curriculum.  But in lower socio-economic neighborhoods we often have a test-driven curriculum focused on having students pass the state tests. In effect, the first educates children for what they need in the world and engages them with interesting and relevant material. While the test-driven curriculum does neither, driving kids from school and shortchanging them so they aren’t as prepared when it comes time to take their place in the world.

To a huge degree this discrepancy is a product of the reform movement. Individuals and organizations seem perfectly happy to use test scores to determine decisions in schools or classes which their children do not attend. But they would storm this building if you tried to put a test driven curriculum in their kid’s school or classroom, particularly one based on making sure grade level competencies are met. 

Kind of like in the 1950’s when the white school boards would buy new books for the white schools and send the used books off to the black schools.  We create the worst curriculums in our lower socio-economic schools while the power structure’s neighborhood schools have a far more beneficial curriculum.

You might say, “Don’t we have to make sure kids pass the tests?”  I guess, the answer would be yes, but at the cost of a decent education?  At the cost of not getting enough help for those kids who are way behind, or the kids who are already at grade level but sit through mind-numbing lessons to make sure they pass competencies they already have? That price is too high.

Recently I read that Finland and South Korea, two countries at the top of world education, not only don’t have a lower-grade testing system, but work hard to make sure that the SAT type tests they do have DO NOT affect their curriculum.  We could do that in Portland. We could set up a fair and equitable system where all students get the education they need. Here is what we could do:

1)    No longer judge principals and staff on their test scores, but on the quality of education they have in their school and classrooms.

2)    Limit test prep by creating district-wide, grade by grade test prep lessons using the best information we have, and then tell principals this is what is to be taught and no other test prep work should take place.

3)    Go back to the way we prescribed curriculum several years ago by using a time system – a certain number of hours of social studies, science, PE etc. in each grade. The standards system the state uses now is easily manipulated.

 And finally 4) Focus our improvement plans on getting principals and staff to identify the problems within their school and classrooms and work on fixing those SPECIFIC problems.

Greg Belisle is a Program Manager from Impact Northwest running for Zone 7 on the PPS board.

Look who’s not running for PPS board.

As reported by Rob Manning for OPB.org on January 14, 2011:

“Portland school board members are seriously considering putting not one – but two tax measures on the May ballot.

Portland voters can already expect to see a $550 million measure aimed at building and renovating school facilities. And now school board members say they may also ask voters to renew an operating levy to help pay for teachers.

The district is looking at a bleak budget picture, and a five-year levy due to expire in a year.

School board finance chair, David Wynde, says renewing the levy a year early would increase local property taxes for next school year.

David Wynde: “There’s the potential for an additional $14 million of operating revenue for the district in the ’11-’12 school year.”

Wynde says the board is sensitive to the economic climate, and no final decision has been made about whether to put a second tax measure on the May ballot. But Wynde says “the district only has so many ways to deal with a looming budget gap.”

 And how many ways does Mr. Wynde think that Portland households have to deal with their looming budget gaps?

Have you ever wondered about the constitutionality of the school board’s guidelines for citizen comment? 

Public Meeting Guidelines for Conduct

The Portland Public Schools Board of Education highly values the input of citizens in making important decisions that affect Portland’s children.  We also believe in the right of citizens to observe Board meetings.  To ensure citizens have an opportunity to attend School Board meetings and offer citizen comment, and to ensure that the Board can conduct the important business of the District, speakers must observe certain basic rules of conduct.  The following guidelines apply to all public comment. 

9.  Individuals offering citizen comment are not permitted to make personal attacks on any District employee, Board member, other testifier, or member of the public.

Can the board really prohibit citizens from criticizing them?  Trudy gaveled down a parent at the Marshall meeting because the parent criticized Carole Smith’s salary.  I don’t think Trudy was legally able to do that. 

In Leventhal v. Vista Unified School District, 973 F. Supp. 951 (S.D. Cal. 1997), a parent (O’Neill) and a community resident (Leventhal) attempted to address the job qualifications and performance of the Vista Unified School District’s Superintendent during the public comment portion of a board meeting.  The school district had a bylaw that permitted the Board President to “terminate a presenter’s address” at an open Board meeting “if a presenter persists, after a warning, to engage in improper conduct or remarks.”

The Board President terminated Leventhal’s testimony once Levinthal began to talk about the superintendent.  Leventhal returned at the next board meeting.  During that meeting, a board member publicly chastised Leventhal for her criticism.  Leventhal sued.

The court decision:

The Court declares that the prohibitions on any criticism, “complaint or charge against an employee of the District” contained in Vista Unified School District Bylaw No. 9002, §§ B and C, violate the Plaintiffs’ rights secured under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.

Debate over public issues, including the qualifications and performance of public officials (such as a school superintendent), lies at the heart of the First Amendment.  (noting that “commenting on matters of public concern” is “classic form of speech that lie[s] at the heart of the First Amendment); (remarking that political speech “occupies the core of the protection afforded by the First Amendment“); suggesting that discussion of public issues lies “at the heart of the First Amendment’s protection; (“The First Amendment affords the broadest protection to . . . political expression in order ‘to assure [the] unfettered interchange of ideas for the bringing about of political and social changes desired by the people.’” (second alteration in original) (quoting Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 484, 1 L. Ed. 2d 1498, 77 S. Ct. 1304 (1957))). Central to these principles is the ability to question and challenge the fitness of the administrative leader of a school district, especially in a forum created specifically to foster discussion about a community’s school system. As the Supreme Court explained in New York Times v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 11 L. Ed. 2d 686, 84 S. Ct. 710 (1964): [**18] 

Portland Public Schools ESL Director is being provided with an Intervention Coach in response to the district’s 13-year history of failure to comply with civil rights laws and to improve the ESL program. 

Where’s Smith’s Intervention Coach?  Why does Smith get a glowing appraisal and extension of her contract when she’s failed to meet all of her performance benchmarks?  Were there benchmarks that the public didn’t know about?

I guess when you have leaders like Trudy, Bobbie, Pam and Ruth, you have to expect that the leadership bar is set extremely low.