Emory Lavista Parent Council hosts Fran Millar, Mary Margaret Oliver and Joe Martin - Part 1

First, before I write a single word about this very informative meeting, let me give major props to the Hospitality Committee and parents at Hawthorne Elementary. I have never seen such an enormous, delicious spread of food at a school-related meeting! They created a welcoming reception for our meeting participants, organizers and attendees.

Friday morning, January 28, the Emory Lavista Parent Council held a very informative meeting focusing on two related topics: “The 2011 Legislative Update” brought to us by State Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver (Dem, Decatur, House District 83) and State Sen. Fran Millar (Rep., Dunwoody, Senate District 40) and “How State Funding for Schools Really Works” as explained by Joe Martin, past Executive Director of the Georgia School Funding Association and recent candidate for state school superintendent.

First, Mary Margaret Oliver (MMO) and Fran Millar highlighted the education-related bills before the legislature this session. SB 84 which outlines ethics for school board elections, has been in effect for two years and states that school boards must create an ethics policy (our school board is still tweaking one) and also says that school boards are limited to seven members unless under local amendment or federal court order. MMO pre-filed HB 22, a locally written bill redrawing attendance lines for the DeKalb school board. Currently the bill is written as dividing into five districts, but it could change to seven. (She took an informal poll and a show of hands in the room preferred five.) In addition, now State Rep. Mike Jacobs has filed HB 63, a statewide bill on the topic that sets school boards at seven members. Although, according to the AJC, "it applies only to school boards in counties with a Homestead Option Sales Tax and education tax -- which is only DeKalb -- and mandates a seven-member board", his bill must pass the House and Senate statewide.

Fran Millar informed us that without the federal stimulus, states would not have been able to balance their budgets and schools would have seen even deeper cuts. There is a funding hole that has not closed so prepare for more major cuts to education from the state. Fran announced that there is a new committee charged with conducting a two-year study on revising the QBE school funding formula. In addition, he would like to see better flow between K-12, technical colleges and universities. He would like to see more opportunities for technical and vocational studies as well as allowing students to Move On When Ready, as evidenced in his B.R.I.D.G.E. bill.

The lottery funds do not benefit K-12 as many people believe, they are spent 2/3 on Pre-K and 1/3 on HOPE college scholarships. Both say that the HOPE scholarship will definitely be revamped. Recommendations include perhaps creating a flat amount for college grants or funding only 80% of tuition or making the scholarships to needs based or perhaps distributed according to a sliding scale. In addition, neither legislator wanted to change the GPA from 3.0 to 3.5 (saying it would only encourage more grade inflation), but adding an ACT or SAT component would be a good idea.

(next post: Joe Martin’s presentation at the same meeting)

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You can view Lynn Jackson's presentation on state school construction funding here:
http://www.dekalb.k12.ga.us/www/documents/vision-2020/facilities-committee-meeting-presentation-(2010-10-21).pdf
The video of the meeting is found here:
http://www.dekalb.k12.ga.us/vision-2020/master-plan

Emory Lavista Parent Council hosts Fran Millar, Mary Margaret Oliver and Joe Martin (Part 2)

Georgia is very fortunate to have a public servant as devoted, level-headed and thoughtful as Joe Martin. Joe has a vast knowledge of education issues in Georgia and has been instrumental in serving as a watchdog for our schools—even going so far as to run for state superintendent of schools last year. Joe also served as Executive Director of the Georgia School Funding Association, and was on the committee that wrote Georgia's Quality Basic Education funding formula. He expertly guided the crowd through the very tedious system of Georgia’s education funding called QBE (Quality Basic Education) at the Emory Lavista Parent Council meeting Friday at Hawthorne ES.

In the formula, each student is assigned a “value”. A regular education high school student has a value of 1.0. Kindergartners have higher values and the value declines as children age. "Program" points are higher: gifted students receive 1.6 points and special education points can be even higher. This value is basically a multiplier and FTE represents revenue. Cost categories are assigned values as well, such as teachers, paras, counselors, textbooks, maintenance, social workers, operations, media specialists—all the components necessary to run a functional, effective schoolhouse are assigned an associated cost. So, students represent revenue and the others represent costs. These components are then layered one upon another creating a funding framework for each of our school systems statewide. The state allocates funding to systems based on the total number of students (FTE values) reported in October and then school systems reallocate those FTE points to individual schools. Principals then decide how to spend their allotted FTE "credits" (within state and federal laws).

Believe it or not, the dollars assigned as multipliers for schoolhouse essentials have not been updated since 1985! For example, the state budget still only allocates about $40 for a high school textbook. In addition, after adding the total number of “FTE” points and calculating the funding for a school system, the state—upon deciding that they don’t “like” or have the money to pay the number the formula produces—makes “austerity” cuts to the QBE budget! So, we have a double-whammy: first, there is no funding adjustment for inflation since 1985 and then the state makes arbitrary cuts to funding our schools. The state has a Constitutional requirement to provide an adequate education to our children, yet the state continues to abdicate it’s responsibility. These "austerity" cuts have left our education budget is where it is: crimped and snipped year after year until we now stand at the point where in order to bring funding to DeKalb schools (in today’s dollars) to the level it was in 1998, the state would need to increase it's annual contribution by 45.3%. Further, DeKalb County, then participates in “Equalization” where a portion of its revenue is given into a pot that is “redistributed” out to “poorer” counties (this is based on property tax revenue – so essentially if the county commissioners raise property taxes by a few mil some of those funds will go into a pot to be redistributed to poorer counties) – so now we have a “triple whammy.”

In answer to the “450” students per school number we have heard discussed in relation to our current redistricting conversation, Joe tells us that the state cares very little about our buildings and the numbers of students in them, as far as FTE funding. The 450 number is a result of basic expectations: 6 grades x 3 classes per grade x 25 students in each class. However, as Lynn Jackson informed us, it does matter to the state when it comes to funding construction projects for new schools and additions. The state won’t give us money for an addition to an over-crowded school if there are other schools that are under-utilized anywhere in the district regardless of their actual location in the county. Even here the 450 number is not magical as it pertains only to a small portion of new construction financing (ie whether a new elementary school receives state dollars primarily for a gym). And we learned that states do not count schools with less than 225 in construction funding formulas.

But for QBE FTE funding, the state merely takes the FTE count given them by the county in October (which can be amended in January), applies it to the QBE formula and sends a big “check” to each school system. It is up to school boards to spend that money as fiscally conservatively and effectively as possible. That means our school board needs to ensure that buildings are properly utilized, school staff is not redundant and other resources are not wasted.

Local school systems then reassign those FTE credits (with dollars attached) to individual schools where principals then decide how to spend their budget within the requirements of the law. Staffing requirements and extras beyond what the state sends is paid by local tax dollars. 450 seems to be a breaking point at which a school has enough state funding to hire an assistant principal but allows for no special staffing. When you have more students, of course, you get more funding and proportionately, principals can hire special staff such as art, music and PE. The state does not have a voice in how schools spend FTE dollars other than the fact that schools must stay within state laws for class size and special program staffing such as gifted. Federal laws mandate how special education money should be spent. [Please note: Principals play no role in filing the FTE count for their school.]

Joe encouraged us all to demand better funding from the state as mandated by our state Constitution. To illustrate the cuts made to education by the state, our funding responsibility has essentially flipped. In 1998, the state funded 49.2% of the revenue for schools, with local systems paying in 50.8%. In FY 2010, the numbers are drastically different: the state pays only 38.4% of the total school revenue, leaving local systems picking up 61.6% of the costs. We have dropped below the threshold necessary for the state to adequately fund education. Georgia is still ranked 49th in the nation and unless we seriously fund what we claim to be important, our ranking will not improve and our children will continue to suffer the lifelong repercussions of having received a poor education.

As Joe said, “this is not about ‘those’ kids—these our ‘our’ kids. Public education is for the public good.” Call or write your state legislator and demand the state of Georgia rise to it’s Constitutional responsibility to provide an adequate education for each and every child in our state.

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For more in-depth but easy to understand information on FTE, click here and download a great Powerpoint called FTE for Dummies written by Paige Cooley of the Savannah-Chatham County Public School System.

Wednesday's ELPC meeting notes

Wednesday, Emory Lavista Parent Council hosted their monthly meeting. The speaker was Ramona Tyson, our interim superintendent who gave the annual "State of the System" address. Below is a compilation of notes taken by two of our regular bloggers, Sagamore7 and fedupindcss.

There was a large crowd that filled entire cafeteria. Board members in attendance were McChesney, Redovian and Speaks (only Redovian spoke, briefly, towards the end). Huge crowd from CO, including Marcus Turk, Beasley, and the new auditor. Mary Margaret Oliver and Fran Millar was there as well, and Scott Holcomb (who will replace Kevin Levitas) and Nancy Jester.

Marshall said the next ELPC in October will be at Briarlake and will cover the process of redistricting (not what will actually be done, but how the process works).

Tyson was very professional, very well spoken, but made it clear that she is in crisis management mode and not happy about her lot in life. Key points on this:

• The first 5 ½ months seems to her as it has been 5 ½ years.
• She was naive about crisis management. She didn’t expect how much of her time it would consume.
• She wants to be held accountable to the best of her ability.
• She will always give the facts when asked and will not EVER hide the truth.
• Against the wishes of her staff, she answers her own email.
• 
  

Here is how the talk (one hour) broke down:

--Movement of data center: Before she got into the State of the System address, she wanted to address a situation that she has had to deal with this week. MIS Department move and the $5,000,000 costs.

Ms. Tyson stated that everyone was getting in an uproar over the project. What was published on the website was the wrong cost analysis. They aren’t going to spend all that money on renovating the building; they just need to move the data servers to a secure environment. [When available, we will publish the new, improved, correct projected line item estimate for the move.]

When the decision was made to move buildings A&B to Mtn. Industrial (which was purchased under SPLOST II), there was no money to do anything until SPLOST III and Mtn. Industrial sat empty for years. Tyson said when the renovation started, she told "people" that they also needed to make sure the data center was included in that move, but no one listened to her and so it was not included in the budget. The data center was thus left behind in the now abandoned A&B, and it holds all personnel records, student records, vendor payment info, and the entire telecom system for DCSS (she added that all DCSS phones from every school connect back to the data center, including 911 calls, so they all have to route through there!). Additionally, the entire fiber optic network for DCSS runs out of there (she was very proud that DCSS owns it, and does not lease it like other systems; she said for once "we have something Gwinnett wants"). So, if the Data center falls apart, the whole system crumbles, and this is a risk if it is left in a decommissioned building.

Tyson said there are no extras, that all they are doing in paying for moving the engineering of it all to Mtn. Ind. The plan that was out there and got to the blog was a "cadillac plan" that the board had put together. There will be no data center "wish list" items [editorial: why did they even propose one as a board request for funds?]. The money for it will not come out of the $40 million surplus, but out of 'contingency' [editorial: how is that not SPLOST money?], and they hope the sale of A&B will pay for it all (A&B are valued at $7.3 million, but don't expect to get that). [Note: previously, we reported that Marcus Turk informed us that the sale of buildings goes into the regular capital funds (not SPLOST construction funds) and can roll into general operations if needed.  So, using the proceeds from the sale to cover the cost is not possible, according to Turk.]

--SACS report: a huge staff worked on it 24/7 for 45 days, said she will not hide the truth, and will give all the facts. SACS said they will respond in 30 days, which she said will be around 10/10/10 [interesting date], and she is very anxious. Of the 243 DCSS policies and procedures that are in place, 4 of them occupied DCSS’s time and attention.

1. Ethics
2. Conflicts of Interest
3. Purchasing
4. Whistleblower

She said she read it 19 times and it went through multiple drafts. She also proudly admitted she withheld it from the AJC, because she wanted SACS to see it first. Tyson said she talked to Dr. Elgart regularly about the progress of the report [!], and gave her explanation for the quick turnaround of the posting of the 4 policy changes (whistleblower, nepotism, etc.). Her story is that normally they would give 30 days for comment, but that they wanted to get them approved and into the SACS report to show that they were making a good faith effort to move forward with revising the school policies (which have not been looked at since 2000).

--Culture of DCSS: (her term): the pattern of employee self-dealing shocked her. She couldn't talk too much about it because of hearings, privacy laws, etc., but they are making it clear what you can and cannot do if you draw a DCSS paycheck.

--Whistleblower rule: employees need to feel comfortable to talk about issues to the administration, but they also need to know that it isn't a free for all to get back at people (like your prinicpal) that you don't like.

--Superintendent search: Board voted to bid for search firm, and the bids were unsealed as she spoke. The vote will take place at the October board meeting.

--Budget: DCSS will get $18 million from the $400 million GA got for the Jobs Education Act (stimulus to cover salaries and benefits at the school level). It will come in two payments between now and the end of October. She is going to work the Turk (!) to bring relief to the schools. Possibilities include releasing furlough days, step increases, cost of living adjustments. The planning for FY 2012 has begun and we should expect more cuts. They built this year's cuts that they expect the state to announce mid year into their budget already, so they don't expect that they will have to do any adjustments in January.

--$40 million SPLOST III surplus: will be dedicated to school needs. We are also eligible for $58 million in school construction bonds to go with the $40 million, and the board will decide on whether to accept it. The Board will sit with the capital improvements people (unclear who they are) in county to decide who to spend it. The $58 million in QSCAB bonds that the federal government will issue to us at very low interest rates. (We have no money to pay them back currently.)

--Outsourcing: Turk (him again!) is working with Tyson to look at how to outsource CO duties (examples included maintenance, operations, transportation, food services). There are 3 or 4 firms in GA who do this, and they are researching them. One issue is that they know that people (who? Board member relatives?) are worried that this will displace a number of DCSS employees, but the word is that many of them get hired back by the outsourcer (after they pass a drug test and if they are found to be competent).

--Facilities & Operations: DCSS wants “Shared Leadership” in the months of September and October. “Shared Leadership is asking the community about redistricting and engaging us in solving the challenges about consolidation.” [Sounds like Jeff Dickerson might have helped write that one.]

In November DCSS will present to the BOE their “Shared” recommendations. That is when the BOE goes back to the community and presents the recommendations to the public and asks for further recommendations to go back to DCSS.

Then in February 2011, DCSS will make suggestions for redistricting and consolidation.

They are going to hire Dr. Humbolt and his company, who recently assisted St. Louis Missouri in redistricting and consolidation, to help in this process. [I haven’t googled him yet.] Along with Dr. Humbolt’s recommendations, DCSS will present their plan along with a STRONG marketing and PR plan. [I guess this is where Jeff Dickerson gets paid again.]

I don’t know if Dr. Humbolt’s company does this also, but Dr. Tyson stated that DCSS is going to hire a 3rd party company to analyze every school in the system. They will analyze the following for recommendations for SPLOST IV.

• The existing school structure and buildings for age and future sustainability.
• Buildings and Operations.

This will be part of DCSS’s “Local Facilities 2013-2017 plan.” Future renovations are based on a “Needs for proper learning environment basis.”

--2020 master facilities plan: it is now on the website. Another third party company will come in to look at every school to see needs from an engineering POV, and this will be the road map for (wait for it...) SPLOST IV!! [Sounds like they are creating a "wish list" for various constituencies to make them think they will get something].

--Remaining focus for her tenure: the new Super will need 3-5 years to fix all this. What she wants to focus on is the following:

• Crisis management
• New culture of DCSS, giving more power back to principals.
• School consolidation/redistricting (she said it will happen, and she won't wait to do it).
• Comprehensive policy revisions.
• Budget
• Teacher support and effectiveness

She stated that she wants to create a sense of “Principal Empowerment”. The majority of all principals have 5 or less years experience at that level.

At this point she introduced Gary Babst, the new internal auditor, and touted his experience with GM.

[I will add, in an entire hour of talking, she did not once mention academics, curriculum, or how to improve student achievement.]

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Here is the Q&A:

Faye Andresen did not ask a question, but instead spoke to the importance of getting county business and political leaders together to counter a possible negative SACS report. She pointed out that we do not want to become another Clayton County, and we do not want our high school students to suffer the consequences.

A woman who identified herself as an Oak Grove/HMS parent said that parents want to know what they can do to help DCSS with their facility issues. Tyson responded that she will have DCSS work with every principal to set up meetings at the schools to present and discuss facilities issues (this sounds a lot like the old Need Assessment committees).

A high school student was there; it was difficult to hear him, but he had a specific personal question, and then he asked about why the Chamblee AYP transfers were put in the annex instead of at Chamblee proper. He also asked why the schools that were heavily renovated or built new did not make AYP, while the schools that made AYP are old and unrenovated (ah, the guilelessness of youth). On the latter, Tyson said that there is no correlation, that schools were renovated or built based solely on safety issues (!), and it was just ironic that it worked out the way it did. There is, she said, no relationship between physical plant and AYP. As to the Chamblee Annex issue, when she found out that over 200 students had chosen it as their first choice, she looked at the logistics and decided that it would be unsafe for the students. While the fire marshal approved the extra students, she said that it would be too difficult and unsafe to do class changes, get to lunch, and get to lockers with the extra bodies. She took full, personal responsibility for making this decision.

Shayna Steinfeld asked her to unbury the 2002 salary audit done by Dr. Brown's administration. It had been paid for but was never used. Tyson said she plans to look hard at CO salaries, and there will need to be a bridge between the '02 audit and a newer audit. She admitted the audit got buried, and said one should have been done every five years (meaning there should have been one in 2007).

Finally, someone asked her to please speak about academics, and how she intends to address student achievement. Tyson passed this question off to Morcease Beasley, head of instruction. He said there is a 7 step process on teaching and engaging. However, since it was not exactly clear what they were you will unfortunately not read about them here. The word "rigor" was used, though. Beasley said he would work with principals to ensure that teachers are ready to move students to "higher order" thinking skills in preparation for the coming national standards.

The last question was about why school starts to early in August, given that we are in financial straits and must spend a lot of money on A/C, expensive August gas, etc. Tyson said that this is an "age old" problem [editorial comment: an age in this case is about 10 years]. Savannah tried to do start after Labor Day for two years, and had to throw in the towel because the state would give no latitude in its testing window to accommodate them. So the metro calendars are held hostage to state testing windows, and it is up to the state (DOE? Legislature?) to change this.

Tyson wrapped up by admitting that communication between DCSS and parents is not good, and she said that once they get that fixed it will help with parent involvement. She admitted that they had offered the PR job to some people who turned it down because the salary was too low, so they are pursuing outsourcing that, instead.

The April 21, 2010 ELPC Town Hall Meeting

Frank. Open. Knowledgeable. Articulate.

The Emory Lavista Parent Council hosted a town hall meeting this morning featuring our interim superintendent, Ramona Tyson. I thought of a flood of adjectives during the meeting to describe my impression of Tyson and the new direction and determination the school system seems to be exhibiting. Tyson and her staff are concerned. They are aware. They are working very hard. Really.

Sincere. Focused. Determined. Caring.

I think Tyson is an excellent choice for an interim leader. She is a mother of two young children in DeKalb schools—she wants them to succeed. She plans to ‘focus on the core business’ with a ‘laser light’ and work to restore trust and rebuild morale. I believed her.

These are some of the tough decisions on the plate:

Balancing the budget for FY 2011.

This must, by law, be done by June 30. We are certain to have an $88 million shortage, however she recommends that the board plan for $115 million. It is the board’s final decision, however, in the past, the board has chosen to accommodate the immediate shortage, and then consistently been hit with more reductions from the state over the summer. This requires emergency budget changes and Tyson wants to just go ahead and plan for that now. Smart.

School Consolidations.

We have 11,0000 empty seats in our system. The board discovered that three schools—Heritage ES, Briarcliff HS and Hooper Alexander—although they have been closed are still counted by the state as having “open seats”. The board plans to take these schools out of commission, which will take the seats off the list. This will reduce the 11,000 to around 9,000.

Next, we have several elementary schools operating at far below the magic number of 450, where state funding kicks in. Consolidating those schools will reduce the number of “open seats” another 2,000 to around 7,000.

We must recover as much as we can from the state. Property tax collections are down and can no longer fill the gap. The state has steadily decreased school funding to the point that funding has flip-flopped. The state used to pay 60% and the county covered 40%. Now, it’s exactly the opposite. We can’t afford the luxury of tiny schools funded entirely with local dollars. The money is just not there and Tyson, staff and the board have a fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayers of DeKalb.

Transportation.

The staff recommends implementing the full transportation savings plan, meaning eliminating all magnet and extra-curricular transportation. They are also looking into electric buses, which are manufactured by a company in China, as well as hybrid buses in order to save fuel costs.

Central Office.

Tyson gave us some numbers. We have 15,859 employees, 13,873 are full-time and 1,906 are part-time. Of these, 14,620 are school-based and 1,239 are central office staff. The current proposed budget cut eliminates 152 of these central office positions, but they will continue to evaluate and streamline the central office and other areas of administration.

Business-like. Engaging. Prepared. Capable.

Overall, the one take-away message stated by Tyson was, “We need to protect services that are closest to students.” She wants to do a forensic audit to take a hard look at the programs that are not working. She understands that the system is asking a lot of teachers and wants to offer things in return, such as eliminating some of their paperwork, creating a venue for communication and creating a classroom environment that allows teachers to do their job.

Overall, Tyson exhibited a deep understanding of the issues at the fore. She reads the news reports but warned us that she has made the decision not to comment to the media. She can’t control how what she says is reported, so she will choose not to comment. She was impressive in her commitment to take the very serious legal and other issues about to come to fruition and place them aside, with her focus remaining on the children.

She certainly didn’t sugar-coat the fact that the “train” is coming. We will be in for a world of bad press here very shortly. A board member even indicated that indictments will most likely be filed soon. This is not going to be pretty. But Tyson has steeled her team and they plan to put on their blinders, allowing all "that" to live on the sidelines, while they execute their “laser light focus” on the task of rebuilding our school system. She wants to “put the students in a cocoon and push through”.

And I believed her.

Light.

Kathy Cox to chat with ELPC

A message from

Emory Lavista Parent Council

Brad Bryant, Georgia State School Board Member,
4th Congressional District

Invites DeKalb County Parents
to a dialog with

The Honorable Kathy Cox
Georgia State Superintendent of Schools
including updates on Georgia's "Race to the Top" application

Friday, January 29, 2010

10:00am - 11:30am

Mercer University, Atlanta Campus
Atlanta Administration Conference Center Auditorium, 2nd floor
Mercer University North Entrance
2930 Flowers Road South

DIRECTIONS TO MERCER UNIVERSITY (ATLANTA CAMPUS)
Traveling north on I-85
From downtown Atlanta, take Exit 94 and turn RIGHT onto Chamblee-Tucker Road. At the second traffic light, turn RIGHT onto Mercer University Drive and then an immediate RIGHT on to Flowers Road.

Traveling south on I-85
From outside the perimeter, take Exit 94 and turn LEFT onto Chamblee-Tucker Road. At the third traffic light, turn RIGHT onto Mercer University Drive and then an immediate RIGHT on to Flowers Road.

Traveling on I-285 north/west
Take Exit 34 and turn LEFT onto Chamblee-Tucker Road. Proceed for 1.2 miles, than turn LEFT onto Mercer University Drive and then an immediate RIGHT on to Flowers Road.
Traveling on I-285 east

Take the Chamblee-Tucker Road Exit, turn RIGHT onto Chamblee-Tucker Road. Proceed for 1.2 miles, than turn LEFT onto Mercer University Drive and then an immediate RIGHT on to Flowers Road.

DIRECTIONS TO ATLANTA ADMINISTRATION CONFERENCE CENTER

After turning onto Mercer University Drive, take an immediate RIGHT onto Flowers Road (Flowers Road completes a circle around the campus with Mercer University Drive). The Atlanta Administration Conference Center will be the first Mercer entrance you come to on your LEFT – 2930 Flowers Road South.

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