Further Observations about the Clinton County School System for consideration by the school superintendent, members of the school board, and any other interested citizens. By Duane Bristow, Parent, taxpayer, citizen, and product of the school system. December 19, 1990 As many people know either because I have discussed it with them or because they have heard it from some 3rd party, I wrote an essay about two months ago asking for a number of improvements in the Clinton County School System based on some short comings of the system that I was sure did exist or that I thought might exist or that I had been told about. I discussed this essay and my comments with about 30 people including employees of the school system, parents, community leaders, and a few school board members, both to get their comments about my complaints and to ask their support in solving problems to the extent they agreed with me. I was very pleasantly surprised that the Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Carver, not only responded to my complaints but asked me to continue to talk to people and investigate the system to any extent I desired with the purpose of my making recommendations for improvement in the system. He made himself, his immediate staff, and all school records and books available to me (and any other interested citizen) without any pre-conditions. This is a report for any interested people about my conclusions and recommendations to this point. First, I would like to state that, although I feel that in general most of my original complaints were and still are valid, some proved on investigation to be invalid or incomplete and I was very surprised and impressed at the improvements that have taken place in the school system during the last five years. Much of this I think, is due to the leadership shown by Dr. Carver. Some of it is due to demands by the public for changes, but much, perhaps most, of it is due to the concern and efforts of many very dedicated and very intelligent school system employees. In general, I feel that although we have a few employees that are not as dedicated and innovative as we would like, most are probably better than we deserve for the salaries that we pay. I think we have these better employees primarily because they were raised in this area and they enjoy living here and to get the higher pay they could command in other employment would require moving to a larger city. They have refused to do this and our community has benefited as a result. I feel obligated to state at this point that these conclusions are mine alone and that they are based on a very limited investigation. To do the job that I undertook properly, I should have interviewed at least 150 school employees and probably several hundred parents and other citizens. However, I hope it will be understood that one person working alone part time and having to make a living as well cannot do such a job adequately. Nevertheless, I hope that the observations and recommendations I make will be of some value to the community, the Superintendent, and the school board. As to specifics, I will attempt to point out major problems I see and future opportunities for improvement. At this point I think our primary problem is the extent of public knowledge of the school system and many attitudes by all our citizens, both school employees and others, toward the system. For historical reasons, of which we are all aware, our community is to a large extent polarized between two groups both of which are sincerely working for better education in this county. The problem is that most people tend to feel that they are a part of one group or the other and that they can best improve education by opposing the other group and supporting their own group. Although there may have been a basis for this in the past, I feel that this attitude is now the one thing most likely to act to the detriment of our school system. Progress will come only if we will all admit that we are all working for the same purpose and freely and openly discuss real or perceived problems with one another. We must agree that minor differences in philosophy cannot sidetrack our efforts to work for the futures of our children. I think and hope that I am not widely identified with either group and can thus act to destroy the fence between the two groups. I have been amazed at the extent to which people have been eager to tell me all the bad things that have been done by one or the other group and how many otherwise intelligent people have been and are convinced that my purpose in investigating the school system was to harm someone or cause someone to lose his or her job. I have also been very impressed by the quality of the analysis of problems and the solutions that have been presented to me by people dedicated to the improvement of the system. In most cases these were the same people who identified themselves with one side or the other. The primary problem I have found is lack of communication. People hear something and pass on the rumor without once going to the source and investigating or questioning the people involved. In most cases the facts will serve to solve these problems, but the facts are usually lacking because no one looks for them. I, like most citizens, have assumed those who desired better education in the county believe that this can come about when politics is no longer a factor in running the school system. This primarily means that hiring and firing, school expenditures, contracts, etc. will be done on the basis of performance or the best long term good for the system and not on the basis of personal connections, friends, neighbors, relatives, or of to which of the above mentioned groups one belongs. This should now occur. I would like to see first, proper business and personnel management instituted in the school system. Qualified people with expertise in the field involved should be hired as supervisors for each of the major school support functions. (See the attached tentative organizational chart.) These people should be people who the Superintendent is confident have the ability and the dedication to carry out the functions of this job. They should then be given full authority to structure their department, to hire and fire, to give bonuses for good work, to reprimand or improve poor work, etc. The only involvement with these people by the Superintendent or the school board should be to define and describe the function they are expected to carry out and to evaluate their performance, not in how they do they job, but in whether they are getting the expected results. Each person from the Superintendent on down should feel that he has the full support of his immediate supervisor and should have full authority and funds to the extent available to carry out his function. To the extent that any employee of the school system feels that their job is any more or less secure because of the election of any school board member or because of anyone other than their immediate supervisor then I feel that that school board member, superintendent, or whoever else is a liability to the school system and I will work against that person. The school board should work to set the overall goals and priorities for the school system to be executed by the Superintendent and should support and fund those goals and should evaluate the Superintendent only as to his competence and success in trying to achieve those goals. I would hope that the overall goal of the system would be something like the "Student's Creed" attached. At present I see four problems (opportunities) confronting the school system which need to be addressed. One of these is public relations. I feel that the school system does an inadequate job of getting public involvement from the parents and the community as a whole in understanding and working with the system to solve its problems and in realizing its strengths and successes. I would hope that problem could be approached through such citizens organizations as Forward in the Fifth and any other civic or parent organizations active and willing to be involved. I further recommend that a full time employee with training, background and competency in some type of public relations work be hired to work with these organizations, the local news media and in any other ways this person deems necessary to carry out this function. I would hope that the School Board members and Community Leaders working as a part of a volunteer advisory committee for the Superintendent could take the lead in encouraging public involvement with the school system on a one to one basis with all the citizens of the county. A very important opportunity to be implemented soon under the state School Reform Law is Site Based Management at each school. The challenge here is to fully publicize this law and to get the parents at each school actively involved in parent organizations to help administer each school by choosing a site based committee. It is important that all parents feel that they have a role in choosing these committees and that the committees are administering the school for the parents and students. A major and fundamental change in the way we educate children will take effect the school year after next at Albany Elementary. This is when ungraded education will take effect for the first three grades. It is very important that everyone interested in the future of education in the county be aware of what is involved here and offer full support in every way possible to the Principal and the staff of Albany Elementary. It must be realized that these educators are at the forefront of an experiment in education which we all hope will be very beneficial for our students. However, because this is new and experimental it will be difficult for these people to implement. They will all need our support, patience, and encouragement. It is my belief that long term improvements in education in this county must start at the moment the student and his parents have their first exposure to the school system and will only be successful if the first four years of school are a very positive and rewarding experience for both the students and parents. Another opportunity, not of the magnitude of the above, but nonetheless far reaching, is the emphasis placed by the state School Reform Law on the use of technology in the schools. There is tremendous opportunity for increased efficiency in administrators offices, for the day to day work of the classroom teacher, and as an instructional tool if computers, video technology, etc. are properly planned, coordinated, and utilized in the classroom and offices of our school system. My belief is that doing this properly will take expert planning and a high funding level. I expect additional money to be available from the state in the future for this use and I would like our school system to be in position to take full advantage of it. As for my views now on specific issues I raised in my original essay, I will give my general impressions. The School transportation system has been very capably managed for the last five years but is still deficient. This is primarily because proper management takes more administrative time than has been allocated to this system. I think the system will be inadequate until there is a full time Transportation Director able to work with bus drivers on a day to day basis, a secretary and/or record keeper, two mechanics and several school bus monitors. The transportation director must be familiar with driving a school bus, must be a good supervisor and planner, and must have adequate record keeping skills. He must also have full authority and support to carry out his job with no interference in details by anyone else. He must then be fully accountable for the results achieved. I think school custodians and maintenance people also need a full time director familiar with this type of work and able to supervise, devise maintenance plans, respond to problems, and work with others in the school system. All the above remarks about responsiblity and authority apply equally to this position and all other supervisory positions. School Food Services I find are in good condition and well supervised. However, I think that the Food Services Director should be asked to prepare a report on all changes in the food services that she would recommend along with estimated costs, sources of funds, and advantages. Then every effort should be made by the Superintendent and the Board to implement these changes or to give her full authority to implement them. As for my criticisms of the type of education being given our children, I think that we have many capable educators who if supported and encouraged to work full time on planning changes that should be made and implementing those changes can solve many, if not all, of these problems. I think that they will recommend that they and we begin to expect more of ourselves, our educational system, and our students than we have in the past, that we increase emphasis on education as life skills to both motivate and better educate our students and I would expect decreased emphasis on rote test taking. We would probably do better to emphasize hands on, small group research projects, simulations, essays and papers, essay type tests, outlining, thinking, problem solving, and grades based more on daily evidence of mastery of the subject material rather than tests. The school system is now developing a policy on fund raising efforts by students. I have not seen this but I feel that the business of the school is education not selling. Even though my son has participated through school projects in raising money for the American Heart Association and other projects which I consider worthy, I still consider this exploitation of school children and I think it has no place in the schools. The only exceptions I can see to a no selling policy would be school pictures, school annuals, and money being raised for their own projects outside school hours by various clubs at the high school. These projects though should be at the initiative of the club members and the projects, the fund raising, and the money raised should be completely under their control with guidance from a faculty member who is a club sponsor. I'm sure there are a few other exceptions I have overlooked but I hope there would be very few. Goals: Enhance our opinions of ourselves, our children & our community by raising expections of Children's behavior Children's ability to learn Mgt. of our school system Pride and faith in our school system Increase student motivation, study skills, and life preparation. Increase public awareness of problems and performance in the school system. Suggested organizational chart Board of Education | Superintendent <-- advisory committee (omsbudsman) ________________|__________________________________________ | | | | Business Manager | Instructional supervisor DPP & homebound transportation | Assistants food | Special program personnel maintenance | bookkeeping | information | & comm. relations \|/ Principals <-- site based committee Asst. Principals Counselors Teachers Teacher's aides. Fundamental Principles: Educators should be involved in education at least 90% of their time. School support functions including bookkeeping, transportation, food, and maintenance do not require educators and should be supervised by experts in these respective fields. Principals and administrative educators including the school superintendent should spend their time innovating, improving, and supervising the educational process and should not be directly involved in support functions except for making requests of needed services or changes from support function personnel and, in the case of the superintendent, providing direct supervision of a Business Manager. The Business Manager should be a business management professional. It is necessary that there be vastly improved lines of communication between the administrative staff and the general public, parents, teachers, students, etc. To provide this requires creation of a superintendent's advisory committee composed of volunteers whose participation is solicited by the superintendent and of a school information and community relations function within the superintendent's office. This function should be assigned to a person trained and experienced in public relations, not necessarily an educator. Under the organizational chart above: The school system is run by a Superintendent who is charged with implementing the policies of the School Board. The Superintendent hires, fires, and directly supervises 3 principals, a Business Manager, a director of pupil personnel and homebound teachers and an instructional supervisor. The Superintendent is advised by a volunteer advisory committee of people he has chosen from the community at large. The supervisory positions include: Superintendent Business Manager Director of Pupil Personnel Instructional Supervisor Transportation Director Food Service Director Maintenance Director Principals Each supervisory person is responsible to hire, fire, train and supervise all personnel in his area of responsibility as well as purchases of all supplies, record keeping, accounting for all inventory, and seeing that the functions of his department are carried out satisfactorily. He is responsible to carry out the policies of his supervisor, to advise his supervisor of problems and to recommend changes in policies, budgets, capital assets, positions, etc. in his area of responsiblity. Once this system is implemented the Superintendent should have much of his time freed to analyze the overall school system and to plan and through his subordinates to implement improvements in education. He should solicite advice and help from experts from the state's universities, the state school commissioner, and any other sources he can develop. His educational assistants then should have time to work closely with principals and teachers in the classrooms to inspire cooperation to implement the district's overall goals as defined in a "Student's Creed" or other statement to be developed and posted prominently in each school in the district and read to each student at the beginning of each school year. RECOMMENDATIONS: 1. Change attitudes of pupils and parents toward the schools starting at 1st grade. Emphasize: a. Learning is fun. (motivation) (the world is a mystery and we learn to solve it through education) Success is a satisfying life derived from knowledge. b. How to learn (study skills). c. Reading and Writing (communication skills) d. Cooperative effort between schools, students, parents, community. e. We can do it if we believe we can. (Our school system can be the best in the state.) f. School behavior will be proper. No tolerance of: 1. Disrespect toward teachers. 2. Disrespect or improper behavior toward fellow students. 3. Destruction of school property. 4. Uncivilized behavior. Littering, unflushed commodes, throwing food, etc. 2. Get Business Manager to supervise: a. Transportion officer who is responsible for providing a safe and decent transportation system with well trained bus drivers, bus monitors, and bus maintenance dept. He would provide hands on supervision and support of bus drivers including riding on at least one bus route per day. b. Food Services officer who is responsible for planning proper diets, food purchases and hands on supervision of all kitchen personnel as well as student snack food purchases. c. Maintenance officer who would prepare maintenance schedules for all school assets, assign maintenance chores to all janitors and maintenance personnel, supervise them on a day to day basis, purchase all maintenance supplies and see that proper maintenance schedules are followed. The goal is an aestheically pleasing school environment in which the students would take pride. d. Bookkeeper who would see that all financial transactions are posted properly. The Business Manager would analyze all financial reports on at least a monthly basis and report to the superintendent. e. Community relations director - see 5 below. 5. Develop a school information and community relations function to publicize school policies, functions, problems, successes, and encourage public input and participation. 6. Promote, encourage and require close supervision and support of teachers on a daily basis by school principals including analysis of course contents, emphasis of teaching, grading systems, etc. Also principals should require accountability of teachers with extra help for the worst and extra recognition and financial bonuses to the best. 7. Provide timeout rooms or an alternative education system for students who are socially, mentally, or psychologically unable to conform to fundamental school rules and expectations. 8. Consider hiring a number of women for janitor and bus driver positions. 9. Set up Supt. Advisory committee to solicit, listen to and investigate complaints from teachers, parents, citizens, students and advise superintendent about problems. A Student's Creed I am a student of the Clinton County School System. This means that I can be proud because I am better than the other people I will come in contact with throughout life. I am better because I was given a better start in life due to the determination of my family, people in my community, and the leaders of my school system to give me the highest possible quality of education. Therefore if I go on to higher education or a professional career I will be able to succeed and excel. If I join the military, I will be one of the best soldiers and one of the first to be promoted. If I become a part of the labor force I will be a leader, a hard worker, and the worker showing the most initiative. If I become a businessman, I will, not only be successful, but I will also be an asset to my community always making it better than when I found it. If I become a secretary, or a housewife or a politician or an explorer or any of the hundreds of other opportunities open to me, I will always excel. I can be proud because I come from a school system and a community with the highest standards. A place where everyone is expected to be neat and clean in personal habits, respectful of and tolerant of the rights of others, respectful of both public and private property always caring for the property of others as if it were my own. A place where there is a love of life and of learning to reach the highest potential of each individual. A place where there is a tradition of hard work to achieve lofty goals. A place where expectations are not for us to be as good as anyone but to be better. A place where we are provided with the very best teachers and faculty who teach us more and expect more of us than in other school systems. I can be sure of myself and confident of my beliefs, my standards, and my future success because I know that my school system gave me an excellent background in: Philosophy so that I could decide what life is about and what I want out of life and be motivated to work to get it. Health, hygiene and social relations so that I can live a long and healthy life, have good manners and get along well with others. Study skills so that I know how to do research and learn the things I do not know. Language, composition, and oral communications skills as well as public relations so that I can communicate effectively with others. Mathematics and logic so that I am adept at abstract thought and am able to see mathematical and quantitative relationships. History, geography and social studies so that I can have a sense of perspective of my place in the vast scheme of the universe. Science so that I know how things work together and so that I know how to obtain knowledge. Literature, poetry, music, and art so that I will be aware of and appreciate my cultural heritage. Physical education and sports so that I have a strong and healty body and am aware of the value of hard work, practice, and teamwork for success. In my behavior both now and throughout my life I will always strive to bring honor and never dishonor to my family, my school and my community. I will always work to and expect to succeed and, if in some things I fail, I will hold my head high and determine to learn from the experience and do better in the future. I will know that my successes are due to my abilities and my hard work and that my failures will never be because I did not do my best. I will always live so that others will be impressed by the example I set and so that I am always an asset and never a liability to any group of which I am a part. In the Clinton County School System our sports and academic teams are always present for practice, listen to their coaches, and work hard so that they can usually win. And if we play another team and, through some freak accident of nature, lose, we will so impress the other team and their fans with our good sportsmanship, our polite behavior, our neat dress, the cleanliness and quality of our team bus or, if at home, our school facilities, that they will remember for a very long time the fact that they played us and the hard game we gave them. Clinton County School students love to learn and expect to work hard at the process. It is common to spend at least two hours every night on homework. If enough homework is not available most students will work on extra credit projects assigned by the teachers at the beginning of each school year and thereby learn more. After twelve years of school in this system then, we will all have been exposed to more education than students from any comparable school systems. School Finances Summary 1990 - 1670 students Amount per pupil % Revenues: Local: Property Tax 214,000 128.14 3.35 Utility Tax 90,000 53.89 1.41 Other 72,000 43.11 1.13 State: SEEK 4,412,363 2,642.13 69.14 Other 200,000 119.76 3.13 Federal: Food 390,000 233.53 6.11 Ch. I & II 538,690 322.57 8.44 Other 70,000 41.92 1.10 JTPA, adult, dropout 136,466 81.72 2.14 Other: 72,400 43.35 1.13 Capital outlay: 185,530 111.10 2.91 TOTAL 6,381,449 3,821.22 99.99 Expenses: Administration 234,097 140.18 3.66 Instruction 4,013,300 2,403.17 62.82 Transportation 441,519 264.38 6.91 Maintenance 494,000 295.81 7.73 Food 390,000 233.53 6.11 Other 41,300 24.73 0.65 Capital 185,530 111.10 2.90 Ch. I & II 538,700 322.57 8.43 Other 50,000 29.94 0.78 TOTAL: 6,388,446 3,825.41 99.99