upset
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Posts: 37
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Post by upset on Jul 20, 2015 10:52:54 GMT -5
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. Winston Churchill
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Post by alexsaitta on Jul 31, 2015 7:25:51 GMT -5
Every time there is a key vote on the school board I usually pull the tape and do a write-up on the vote -- what was the issue, how I voted, and why I voted that way. I just finished my write-up on the March prayer vote. It was a series of three votes. Here is some of the video from what I said at the last vote. I'll put the entire write-up on my website in a day or two.
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Post by alexsaitta on Sept 17, 2015 10:54:30 GMT -5
The home page has a good write-up, a bit lengthy, but very informative. It is entitled, "Teacher Pay Gap", and generally focuses on that (how it came about, why it came about, and how it was closed) and also talks about the 2015-16 budget process as well. It also explains why I voted against the budget.
Overall all the board members supported narrowing and then closing the teacher pay gap with surrounding counties, but I didn't support the way it was done -- all at one time and by eliminating 25 classroom teaching positions plus using one time savings to fund that long-term expense.
How does eliminating classroom teachers improve education? And funding a recurring expense with savings is a financial no-no because it creates a long-term deficit. Hopefully, the economy continues to grow, and the district will grow out of that deficit over time. Maybe not. It was a risk I didn't feel needed to be taken because the pay gap could have been closed over time with much less risk.
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Post by conservative on Sept 17, 2015 12:34:26 GMT -5
Great recap, understandable and without political bias. I'll add that by saying it appears that a tax increase is being marinated, ready to be served up when classroom ratios grow, as apparently planned. With savings depleted and teacher pay unable to be cut, the long knives will come for more money. "It's for the children" will be impossible to ignore.
What is the outlook for Pickens Co. pupil numbers? If not static, how does total student population change affect near-future budgets, if any?
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Post by alexsaitta on Sept 18, 2015 7:55:05 GMT -5
Thank you. It is a very thorough column.
Student enrollment is generally flat with a bit of a decline the last few years. This past year K-12 enrollment was 16,116, the year before 16,203, before that 16.172 and before that 16,159.
Build the school buildings and they will come I remember those who voted for the program telling me. Home schoolers and private schools will come for the buildings. (I remember saying, I don't think so because there aren't any jobs in the center or northern part of they county.
Actually, home schooling has risen about 2 or 3% a year over the last 8 years. Not sure about private schools, but we lost 144 to a charter school teaching students in steel building and portables.
The public was told a lot of things before and during the building program that proved to be untrue. Add that to the list.
The next financial challenge will occur when... the district is starting to grow spending again at a good clip, and enrollment remains flat so new revenue isn't coming in that way, at some point there will be a recession, revenue will fall and then you'll see a crunch. At that point, I don't think there will be much savings left, and then it will be challenging.
Like I've said below. It is OK now with the economy and school district because the economy is growing and will continue to grow into 2016 or 2017.
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Post by aycaramba on Sept 22, 2015 20:25:24 GMT -5
I saw in the Greenville News that the school district has recently spent $800,000 to purchase 1,374 Chromebooks, one for every ninth grader in the county. This works out to $582 per Chromebook. I went to BestBuy.com to look at the prices of Chromebooks, and the price range was from a low of $130, to a high of $480. Most decent ones were in the $200 range. A Lenovo 11.6" Chromebook with an Intel Celeron chip, 2gb of memory, and a 16gb solid state drive was $205. A carrying case can be had for $25-$30. These prices are FULL RETAIL. One would think that if an order were being placed for almost 1,400 of these devices that a volume discount could have been negotiated.
So my questions are: is the information that was in the news article inaccurate? Did we actually purchase more than twice as many Chromebooks than the article said? If not, why did we spend $800,000 for something that could have been acquired for less than $350,000 (even without a volume discount)?
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Post by pickenscoresident on Sept 22, 2015 21:08:42 GMT -5
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Post by alexsaitta on Sept 23, 2015 7:44:36 GMT -5
We approved $804,000 for secondary (middle/ high) end user devices. My guess is we bought more than that, but I will find out the details.
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Post by weewillie on Sept 24, 2015 19:36:21 GMT -5
Does the school board not have to vote on this type purchase?
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Post by alexsaitta on Sept 25, 2015 8:27:41 GMT -5
We approved $804,000 for secondary (middle/ high) end user devices. My guess is we bought more than that, but I will find out the details. The board voted on allocating $804,000 to the purchase of secondary end user devices. The administration chose the devices and negotiated the price they paid. Things like this is one of the issues of contention. How much should the board be involved with that end purchase or monitoring such big ticket purchases? Right now there are three board members that want to leave all that to the administration. Hence, there isn't a majority of board members pushing to be more involved in even reviewing such purchases. (Like I've long said, you get the government you elect.) When I was the chairman and we had a majority that supported looking closely at spending. The board reviewed credit card statements, met with department heads and building managers on their spending, etc. (a general level of review of past expenditures). This is when we uncovered the $600 principal lunches and all that ended. That was one reason spending became more efficient or targeted to the classroom, and spending growth slowed. I asked about this computer purchase, and will have an answer Monday. However, looking at one purchase isn't going to change anything, other than answer your question. The entire culture of how money is spent must be changed not only in our district, but statewide. Boards should make the budget allocations, and then give the administration the leeway to make purchases, but the board should create a framework to oversee and then review such purchases. Again, we don't have a majority do that, although that is what should be done and what was done when I was the chairman and we had a majority to support such reviews. In the end, this approach will bring about reform because it is one of the primary reasons the system is getting so expensive, too expensive.
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Post by conservative on Sept 25, 2015 12:18:15 GMT -5
I read this immediately after cruising your always interesting discussion board: www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/sep/24/golden-hammer-epas-fondness-for-high-end-furniture/?page=2I didn't resist coming back to dump a thought. What higher purpose is an elected board for if not administering, monitoring and auditing fiducial responsibility, authority and accountability? If not the school board, then who represents the public's interest? It's certainly not AdvancEd. If a school superintendent is not comfortable with the board that hired him being kept in the loop of important, costly long-term use expenses then that's a potential problem waiting to become public. Micromanaging is to be avoided but having stakeholders knowledgeable about million dollar purchases intended to encourage student learning should fun and exciting conversations for all. At best, if I'm the Superintendent (I've had that title and spent that amount of money in private industry) I want my employers and employees to have confidence in my decisions. At worst, if things go sour, I want to share unexpected failures. Eschewing auditable spending with partners in management is a signal of concern, in this case, from the public. The differences in authority, responsibility and accountability being recognized and understood makes all the difference. Alex knows this.
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Post by alexsaitta on Sept 25, 2015 21:16:42 GMT -5
Thank you. I do realize this and that is one of the things I tired to change on the board. The problem has been except for 2 or 3 years, mine was a minority point of view. Most every board I've served with over the 12 years about half the board members have seen their purpose as to vote for what the administration requests without question. They believed their participation was a necessary formality for the administration to receive what it wanted. They would say they supported the district. I'd call it a rubberstamp.
That's a strong statement, but it is not hard to find evidence to back it up. I keep track of the votes and plenty of board members have voted with the administration more than 95% of the time. I'll give you an example when it was at its extreme. With the board of 2006 there were 4 board members who voted with the administration's recommendation 99% of the time. There are a lot of votes over a 2 year period. The 5th board member voted with the administration's recommendation 97% of the time. Is that a group of people independently weighing what has been put in front of them? I don't think so. Why would they seek to monitor anything when it comes to spending? The idea never crossed their mind. The building plan started at $158 million and was increased to $387 million (9 increases) and the thing was, they were OK with all those increases/ cost overruns. Monitor, what for?
This is one of the primary reasons traditional public schools in SC cost $12,000 per student, and charter schools and private schools do it for less than half of that. There is little financial monitoring by the boards. When the board of 2010 reviewed monthly spending statements, it was unheard of. When we had a series of meetings with department heads and school principals to discuss spending (something that goes on annually in private companies), it was never done before and never done again. Because there is no independent body monitoring spending, costs are extremely high in the public school system and only about half the money makes it to the classroom.
I think if you sat down with a Superintendent that just got a huge referendum passed or saw his budget increase significantly, he'd see it as a win. What they don't realize, is such "wins" make their service more expensive, going from unaffordable in the long run to very unaffordable. At some point the economy hits the skids and the legislature will see the system as unaffordable in the long-run. The legislature is already slowly moving in that direction (see the shift toward less expensive charter schools).
The wiser course for district leaders to keep costs low, so when the economy hits the skids, the traditional public education system doesn't stand out as a big unaffordable thumb in the state budget that has to be streamlined, reformed or dismantled.
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Post by geraldgarrett on Sept 26, 2015 21:58:38 GMT -5
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Post by alexsaitta on Sept 27, 2015 17:19:47 GMT -5
Do you mean zero tolerance when it comes to weapons? Like automatically suspending a student for a nail clipper? That started after the Columbine shooting in 1999 or before I got on the board. We took that zero tolerance aspect out of our policy book a two steps (2007 and 2011) and gave the building and department heads discretion in such cases.
Do you know of instances were students have automatically been suspended because of board policy for bringing in a nail clipper or finding a pocket knife on the ground and the student turns it in and happens to be possessing it and is suspended?
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Post by geraldgarrett on Sept 27, 2015 23:56:51 GMT -5
Well, I know that at one time a child could be suspended from school for having an over-the-counter pain reliever like Motrin in his or her possession.
At one time, if one student attacked another student, and the victim defended himself or herself, BOTH would be suspended from school for three days or longer. We wonder why so many don't think the United States should defend itself - it's at least partly because the schools are now teaching that self-defense is a punishable defense. I always told my kids that if they were attacked in school, they had every right to defend themselves, and if they got suspended we'd go fishin' or something to pass the time.
I've heard that just a few years ago a student who borrowed his father's truck to drive to school one day was suspended because administrators found a huntilng rifle in that truck that the student was totally unaware of. (Perhaps it was a pack of cigarettes, I'm not sure.) I don't know what happened the Constitutional protection against warrantless searches of private property, but apparently somewhere along the line it was taken away from anyone under the age of 18.
Can a student bring a plastic knife along with his lunch of chicken without running the risk of being suspended? I'm thinking he could do no more damage with a plastic knife than he could do with one of those compass thingies they're assigned for drawing circles - you know, the ones with a point sharp enough to drop a horse.
There are other examples, I'm sure. How about free speech? Can a student still be suspended for uttering a politically incorrect racial or ethnic term? For wearing a jacket in the color-du-jour of some local gang? For writing a term paper about his his great-great-great grandfather was a much-admired Confederate hero?
No, Alex, I'm not talking about perceived "weapons" violations. I'm talking about the overall mindless, one-size-fits-all monstrosity of "zero tolerance" that has been foisted upon education establishments nationwide over the past quarter century or so.
Perhaps we no longer use that in Pickens County schools. If we don't, my congratulations to you, sir. But I suspect elements of "zero tolerance" survive and thrive here. So many people consider them "common-sense rules" nowadays, though, that many don't recognize how mindless they really are.
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Post by alexsaitta on Sept 28, 2015 6:53:56 GMT -5
None of that is mandated by board policy, though, like it was in the zero tolerance days, which I thought was your complaint.
Zero tolerance policies are this. The school board policy would say, if you are found with a weapon (like a pocket knife), you are to be suspended 10 days no ifs, ands or buts. So if a child found a pocket knife and brought it to the office to turned it in, he would have automatically be suspended because of the policy. He had a weapon, he had it in his possession and the policy said 10 days, no common sense was applied. We and many other school districts had that after Columbine in 1999. We changed that in our policies in two steps in 2007 and 2011 giving the principals discretion to look at all the facts like you mentioned above, and then they can make a decision on what punishment they can hand out. That was an improvement. Nor is there a policy that says a student can't write a book report on his much admired Confederate hero.
To the here and now. Your direct complaint is with the particular principals or school who in those cases are making those decisions. The board and superintendent would not give principals the authority and then reach over their shoulder in every decision they make. The only way the board would directly be involved in such and such case is if a parent filed a grievance and took the case to the board and then we'd hear the facts and rule directly on it.
Indirectly the Superintendent and board hire those principals and are involved in that way via hiring and evaluations. If there are principals or a principal who is making decisions with no common sense applied, then we have responsibility there in the re-hiring and evaluation process. Send me a list of complaints, and I will make sure it gets to the Superintendent and it will be investigated.
You hear this in a one-off case in the media, but to act on it, we need participants stepping up, providing the information and being willing to give the facts.
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Post by alexsaitta on Sept 29, 2015 6:10:46 GMT -5
I saw in the Greenville News that the school district has recently spent $800,000 to purchase 1,374 Chromebooks, one for every ninth grader in the county. This works out to $582 per Chromebook. I went to BestBuy.com to look at the prices of Chromebooks, and the price range was from a low of $130, to a high of $480. Most decent ones were in the $200 range. A Lenovo 11.6" Chromebook with an Intel Celeron chip, 2gb of memory, and a 16gb solid state drive was $205. A carrying case can be had for $25-$30. These prices are FULL RETAIL. One would think that if an order were being placed for almost 1,400 of these devices that a volume discount could have been negotiated. So my questions are: is the information that was in the news article inaccurate? Did we actually purchase more than twice as many Chromebooks than the article said? If not, why did we spend $800,000 for something that could have been acquired for less than $350,000 (even without a volume discount)? The article didn't have the right information. Here is the actual information: We bought 3,657 Chromebooks at a cost of $257 each or $938,821. Software was $60 per or $219,180. We bought cases for 1,408 of them at $30 or $42,240. The tax was $21 per or $76,713. Total cost was $1.27 million. For just the ninth grade they bought 1,408 at a cost of $518,144 or $368 a pop -- Chromebook, software, cases and tax.
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Post by alexsaitta on Sept 29, 2015 9:10:01 GMT -5
Before, all high schoolers were required to take the exit exam. Act 155 passed by the state legislature changed that. Now all 11 graders have to take ACT's Workkeys. This test measures a student's skill level for a population of jobs in the economy along three lines -- applied math, reading information and information location. The test has 5 categories: Platinum are those who would have the skill set for 95% of the jobs in the pool, Gold for 90%, Silver for 65% of the jobs and Bronze for 35% of the jobs. ACT gives a certificate for Bronze or 35% of the jobs or above. In our district 91.8% of 11 graders were Bronze or above. We ranked 11th in the state out of 84 districts. 70.7% were Silver or better, ranking 8th in the state. Students college bound still can take the ACT and SAT, but all students must take the ACT's Workkeys. www.act.org/workkeys/careerseekers/pdf/UsingWorkKeysScores.pdf
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Post by aycaramba on Sept 30, 2015 5:37:41 GMT -5
Thank you for the information on the Chromebooks Alex. I am going to assume that they bought almost three times as many Chromebooks as they needed this year in anticipation of giving them out for the next two years to the rising ninth grade classes, and probably at some point deciding that every teacher simply MUST have one too. I'm not sure how, if the Board approved $804,000 for the purchase of secondary end user devices, the administration ended up spending 50% more than that at $1.27 million, but I'm going to guess that it is just an example of what often happens in government spending. Thanks again for the information.
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Post by alexsaitta on Oct 1, 2015 9:14:26 GMT -5
I think they bought them for more than 9th graders. The article only reported the 9th grade purchase. You do make a good point about the board approving $804,000 and $1.2 million being spent. The same occurred to me. The total technology approval was $2 million, so they may be shifting some from one tech line to another. But like I said there is no review of what is spent after the fact for the capital needs budget/ computer budget. Why? At least half the members of every board I've served on 2004, 2006, 2008, etc. don't really much care about monitoring expenses. It is sad to say, but that is the truth. I've sat in more than a couple of hundred meetings so far.
The two years I was chairman and we asked to look at purchase card reports, and were questioning department heads in formal meetings on spending, there was so much push back from some board members. Why are we doing this? One or two actually called it degrading. Asking department heads about their budgets and spending/ financial reviews that occur in every organization of this size and it is considered degrading? One of the primary functions of the board is to monitor spending making sure what is approved is spent as approved, done so efficiently and within budget, yet some don't see it as unimportant or not their responsibility.
The overall capital needs/ computer budget was $4.6 million and I will ask how and what that money was spent by line item. But unless I or someone else asks, we'd never see that information as part of the natural process. That doesn't exist for this capital needs budget like it does for the general fund budget.
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