The D11 Fact Sheet

There is much disinformation and misinformation circulating around the School District 11 community. Much of this misinformation is being spread by those who are intent on maintaining the status quo. This blog will set the record straight and it will educate the public on the identities of these defenders of the status quo.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Poore-ing it on

Before Terry Bishop became Superintendent of School District 11, he was the Deputy Superintendent for IT. While serving in that role, Bishop built a fairly large infrastructure of IT administrators, most of whom had very little savvy when it came to technology related issues. One of the largest areas of dissatisfaction towards administrative support to the schools was in the area of IT.

As Bishop took the job of Superintendent, he stated that he was not going to fill the Deputy Superintendent slot that he was vacating. He said that he could save the district money simply by making the head of IT a Department Chair position. While we reformers were on the board, Bishop stuck to that promise.

It is a tradition in D11 for administrators to use tax payer funds to create wealth among like-thinking friends. While Terry Bishop, Mary Thurman, and Glenn Gustafson would be stumped if asked to create a plan to improve the academic performance of the district using the $500 million tax payer funded budget, none of them would blink an eye at how to funnel big money towards other administrators. No impact on student achievement needs to be considered when placing old buddies on the payroll, so this is much easier than educating kids.

We reformers implemented an administrative hiring freeze in D11 while Sharon Thomas was superintendent. This woman was planning an administrative hiring frenzy that would have placed every ex-D11 administrator she could contact on the payroll again. The hiring freeze required the administration to separate administrative hiring requests from general personnel actions. The administration was required to specify the job duties of any new administrative hire, to include the position's impact on student achievement.

Thomas was a student of former D11 superintendent Ken Burnley. Burnley designed the position of Executive Director to fit somewhere below the job of deputy superintendent. These slots were to be filled with loyalists and were designed to pay $95,000 per year or more. The joke among district employees has always been that nobody had any idea what executive directors really did for a living, other than collect big paychecks.

Now that Bishop has a board that answers to the administration rather than one that demands accountability, Bishop has decided to ignore his promise of leaving his deputy superintendent slot vacant. Bishop has changed the name of his old position slightly, but he has given his old friend Michael Poore the job of Deputy Superintendent and has given him a salary of over $120,000. Poore used to be the principal of Mitchell High School. Although he was liked by many people, he was rather ineffective at providing educational leadership for the struggling school. Poore has been working these past few years in the northern Colorado area. Although he has no real background in IT issues, that is irrelevant. He is being hired by Bishop because he wanted to move back to Colorado Springs and he needs a large salary. No one on the board questioned this hiring at all. On top of that, the administration has begun to ignore the hiring freeze with no vote ever being taken by the board to lift the freeze. Once again, the cowardly leadership on the board did not have the guts to tell the community that they favored tax dollars going to the admin building rather than to the classrooms.

In addition to the new deputy superintendent position, Bishop has created yet another executive director position. This position was given to Christian Cutter and is titled
"Executive Director of Student Achievement and School Accountability." The position pays over $95,000 annually and reports to Mary Thurman. Notice the fancy title. As Deputy Superintendent for Instruction, one would think that Thurman would be responsible for student achievement and accountability, but her $120,000 salary is apparently not high enough to allow her to handle those important responsibilities. No one on the board questioned Thurman or Bishop when they decided to tell the board to hire Cutter. No one asked how this position would possibly cause student achievement to rise. There are already executive directors for each level of schools (elementary, middle, and high school), so it is not clear where Cutter will fall into place. No chain-of-command relationship was required to be set up by the administration, and no clear area of authority has been detailed. As expected, no one on this board even cares.

Bishop took the job of superintendent with big promises of bold initiatives and a focus on students. It should probably not be a surprise that he has, instead, taken on the pattern of his D11 predecessors, which is taking more money from the schools to build a bigger administrative empire.

Notice that the labor union leadership, who are supposed to have the interests of teachers in mind, will never say a word about this. If they keep their mouths shut like good boys and girls, they know that the D11 Gravy Train will one day pass by their door steps, as well.

Friday, June 22, 2007

Courage of Their Convictions (or lack thereof)

Besides opposing vouchers for everyone else and then demanding one for herself, the one other thing that ex-D11 board member Karen Teja is known for is her constant demand that the BOE follow "process." Teja used the "process" excuse to slow down any agenda item that she opposed. She taught her current status-quo allies on the board to use that same tactic to delay implementation of any reforms in D11. "Process" was more important to these liberals than was any progress towards improving D11.

On June 6th, the D11 board voted to accept members on a committee that was formed to look into the issue of how to dispose of East Middle School now that the board voted to close the school. Interestingly, this agenda item never appeared as a non-action item. D11 board policy requires every item to appear on non-action before it appears on action at a subsequent meeting. The purpose for this process is so that the community will have time to see what items the board will be dealing with. It gives the community time to speak on those topics and to give input. For some reason, the board chose to rush this item through with no public notice at all. Teja did not appear at the board meeting screaming about "process."

More importatntly, the June 6th meeting was listed as a Work Session, where no votes are taken. Without posting any type of notice on the D11 website, Gudvangen changed the Work Session to a Special Meeting at the last minute to avoid any public scrutiny of his actions. For a person who pretends to care so much about his public, Gudvangen did not want the public to know about this meeting.

According to the minutes of the May 16th BOE meeting, this item was to be brought to the board on June 6th as non-action, then voted on during the June 27th meeting.

"Dr. Bishop advised that a list of proposed committee members would be presented to the board on June 6 and that the board would approve committee membership on June 27, 2007. Director Tanner asked to see a list of names of the applicants. "

According to the posted agenda, this item was never listed as non-action. It went straight to action without a vote of the board. Where was the "process" that always seemed to matter when we were on the board?

Notice that Tanner wanted to see the names of the applicants. In fact, Tanner was given the authority to pre-screen applicants and to eliminate applicants who she did not agree with politically. During my tenor on the board, we never pre-screened committee applicants. On one occasion when Eric Christen wanted to reduce the bond oversight committee from 48 applicants to 25, the liberal board members screamed that he was using his position to keep citizens from serving their community. They accused him of playing politics with committee membership.

Tanner eliminated 20 applicants from the committee, and the board did not have the guts to deal with this issue publicly. The board never even released the names of all of those who applied for the committee. To have done so would have shown that Tanner eliminated anyone who she felt did not agree with her anti-reform worldview. Where is the outcry from D11 watchdogs? Where is the Gazette headline?

The makeup of the committee had to be very limited to allow the administration and anti-reform board members to lead it to a pre-determined recommendation. In an unprecedented move, the administration and Jan Tanner pre-selected to committee chair persons rather than allowing the committee members, all of whom are adults, to select their own leadership. Not surprisingly, one of the chairpersons is the wife of John Gudvangen's campaign manager.

As the Gazette mentioned a couple of weeks ago, the administration wants to keep the meetings of this committee secretive. During the first meeting of this committee on Wednesday, committee members were actually told to not have conversations about committee meetings with non-committee members. This was on the instructions of Gudvangen and Tanner and the other cowards in the administration.

The reason that this board and administration are so concerned about secrecy is because they are not looking out for the best interests of the D11 community. The administration, in concert with the very weak and compliant board, are working to further the interests and fatten the pocketbooks of big-wig administrators and their liberal friends in the community. As an example, Barbara Day, a close friend of Terry Bishop, was brought into D11 to be a "program manager" for the site based management implementation. Bishop knew that he was going to eliminate this program, but he brought Day in anyway and paid her over $50,000, part-time, he said, to manege the program that does not exist. Since Day just purchased a $500,000 home in Black Forest with her boyfriend, another Bishop friend, Bishop felt the need to keep Day around, so he charged her with running this utilization committee. Bishop has not yet made public how much money he is paying his friend to "run" this particular committee. Friends of D11 administrators always receive at least 6-figure tax payer funded incomes.

Not only did the board secretively select a majority of members for the utilization committee who they could control, but now the committee members have to sit through 4 meetings wherein the administration does all of the talking. These administration lectures will be designed to lead the committee members down a particular road. Facilities director Frank Bernhard will present slanted information, and CFO Glenn Gustafson will provide limited budget figures that will support his pre-chosen path. I don't know what the administration wants to do with East or other schools, but the point is that the committee was chosen to pick the options that the administration and anti-reform board members want it to pick.

In a humorous but pathetic side note, Gudvangen told a committee member that this current board had to close East because the previous board had refused to make tough decisions. Unfortunately for Gudvangen, there is ample public record of his opposition to ever even addressing the situation with East or any other poor performing D11 school while reformers were on the board. The only reason that Gudvangen acted is because the state required the board to act. Sorry, Johnny, but pretending to be a leader does not qualify you as one.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Still Missing in action

In a post back in December, I provided teacher absentee data for D11. That data included absences for several school years. Listed below is Colorado Springs Education Association leadership absentee data for the first half of the 2006-2007 school year (through the end of December 2006). As I pointed out in my prior posts on teacher absences, the district can consider a student truant if the student misses 10 or more school days in a school year. With that in mind, note how many days some of these labor union leaders were absent in one semester and notice how many are on track to exceed 10 days absent once again in a 170 student contact day school year.

Mark Hampson – No data
Diane Beatty – 3
Nancy Haley – No data
Margie Couper – 8
David Fisk – 7
Katie Friedel – 7
Brian Kachel – 4
Jeff Marshall – 6
Scott Noller – No data
Patsy Oneal – 13
Lori Watson – 14
Tom Watson – 6
Jeanne Williams – 15

A new CSEA president was selected after the felony theft scandal. That person is Kevin Marshall. Kevin was absent from his classroom 10 days in the first semester of the 06-07 school year. He’s already truant and he hasn’t even taken the helm of the labor union yet.

The above labor union leaders were the same people who I listed in my prior post. There have been changes at the top due to the scandal and to new elections.

Former East math teacher Lori Watson frequently posts to criticize me on this blog. In her posts, she tells me that she is fully dedicated to her profession and that I am nothing but a low-life for questioning anything that she does. Note that Lori was absent for 14 days in the first semester alone this past year. If any of her students missed that same number of days in the whole year, D11 could take that student to court for truancy.

At the middle and high school levels, let’s take a look at the numbers of teachers who would be considered truant by D11 policy if they were held to the same standards as their students. This is numbers of teachers per school who were absent 10 or more days in one semester alone this past year. This does not include extended absences for sick days.

The first number is the number of teachers absent for 10 or more days during the first semester. The second number is the total number of teachers employed at that school. For example, 5/25 would mean that 5 teachers were absent for more than 10 days in a school with 20 teachers. The third number is obviously the percent of the teaching staff that was absent for more than 10 days in one semester.

East Middle School: 18/30 60%
Holmes Middles School: 6/36 17%
Irving Middle School: 11/47 23%
Mann Middle School: 5/36 14%
North Middle School: 12/34 31%
Russell Middle School: 5/45 11%
Sabin Middle School: 9/42 21%
West Middle School: 4/30 13%
Jenkins Middle School: 2/48 4%

The D11 board recently voted to close the doors on East Middle School. Lori Watson and others would have us believe that the staff spent the year working hard to save the school and to educate the students. 60% of the teaching staff missed more than 10 days in the first semester alone. What would those statistics have looked like had the staff NOT been giving their all for those kids? Does that really look like a serious educational environment?

As far as high schools, they looked like this:

Coronado: 10/80 12.5%
Doherty: 11/98 11%
Mitchell: 15/83 18%
Palmer: 18/103 17%
Wasson: 18/84 21%

Teachers are public servants and teacher absentee data is a matter of public record. Anyone can request to see the attendance data for any school that they choose.

The teacher absentee issue is a major issue that neither the board nor the administration will attempt to fix. As usual, the labor union stands squarely in the way of any attempt to reduce teacher absences. Not only does it affect the students whose teachers are chronically absent, but it affects the district budget as substitutes are hired by the hundreds each day, but particularly on Mondays and Fridays.

Those who make an effort to pay attention will probably be surprised to find out how many days their children find themselves sitting in front of a substitute teacher each year.

Monday, June 11, 2007

They actually believe themselves

The suspense was absolutely killing me as I awaited the certain reply to my Gazette Oped of a week ago. Mary Ellen McNally had emailed the D11 board members and ordered them to respond to my oped in which I pointed out that this board had literally done nothing since taking full control after the recall. McNally demanded that her little people on the board tell the world all of the great and important things they had done in the past 6 months. Unfortunately for McNally, her people had to tell her that they couldn't think of anything to write about. They were stumped because, well, my Oped was actually right on the money.

Finally the suspense was broken as McNally and her caustic friend Richard Serby came to the rescue. Their "In Response" letter in the Gazette can be summed up in one sentence: This board closed East Middle School.

The irony of that accomplishment is hard to miss. One of the people who McNally recruited during her recall effort was Norvelle Simpson. He was an ex-D11 board member who served with McNally when the academic decline in D11 first began. While Eric Christen and I were appearing on the Joseph Michelli show, Simpson called in and explained that his support for the recall was based on the fact that we reformers wanted to shut D11 school buildings. He pointed out that he and McNally had closed the old South Middle School, and that had led to all types of problems for the affected neighborhood. He was angry because minorities were hit hardest by his decision. In an amazing leap of logic, Simpson declared that since he and McNally had closed a school and caused hardship in the community, then we should be removed from the board because they were telling people that WE also wanted to close a school or two. Got it?

The decision on East was not initiated by this school board. Due to the continuing unsatisfactory performance of the East staff, the state directed that something be done with the school. While I was on the board, we reformers warned over and over again that dramatic action had to be taken to improve certain schools or the state would step in and force action. The state forced action in this case. This board could have chosen to allow East to remain open under management that actually knows how to educate kids (Cesar Chavez), but due to the total anti-charter mood on this board, they chose to close the building altogether. That wasn't necessarily a hard decision for the board; it was simply something that their handlers told them to do.
McNally and Serby brag that this board has assembled a committee to study the East facility and other D11 facilities. Big deal. Another committee spent 2 years studying facility usage. The Long Range School Use Study (LRSUS) committee recommended consolidating or reutilizing 6 different schools in the district. Gudvangen and his allies refused to listen to that committee. The West Side Task Force committee existed prior to the LRSUS committee. If putting committees together is an end in itself, them yes, liberal D11 boards have always accomplished a lot.

The next biggest accomplishment that McNally and Serby can latch onto is that board members have been visiting schools. When I served, we reformers always visited school buildings. In fact, school staffs commented that we were the first board members to actually come out to the school buildings on a regular basis. People like Gudvangen, Karen Teja, Mary Wierman, and Tami Hasling were actually upset about our school visits. They accused us of interfering with school staffs when we visited buildings, and yet they now want to pretend that they are visiting schools.

In my Oped, I mentioned (correctly) that this board relishes its secrecy. McNally and Serby point out that this board spends time "communicating with one another via telephone and e-mail frequently to ensure common understanding of issues...and to reach consensus, whenever possible, when voting on important matters." First of all, keep in mind that this is actually a response to an accusation that this board is a do-nothing board. The best they can say is that they call and e-mail each other? Wow, heavy stuff.

Soon after our swearing in in 2003, the Independent ran a scandalous article accusing us reformers of violating the Sunshine Law by having more than 3 of us gathering publicly at Old Chicago's for a snack. It was a social gathering in public with numerous D11 employees. Now McNally informs us that the current board is reaching consensus in phone calls and e-mails, which is a direct violation of state laws. Reaching consensus by phone or e-mail is called a "rolling quorum," and it is forbidden by law. This further proves my point that this board operates in secret and out of view of the public. By the way, how would McNally know that the board is communicating by phone and email to reach consensus on important issues? She is no longer on the board, correct?

McNally says that the board is holding the administration accountable for providing detailed information necessary in making good decisions. How have they done this? What measure is she using to validate that claim? Is there any accountability for academic performance, a charge for which all school districts are responsible? McNally and Serby don't say, because that is not important to them.

In short, McNally and Serby wrote a silly article that said absolutely nothing. It proved, beyond doubt, that what I said in my Oped was right on target. Beyond the closing of East, which was mandated by the state, this board has "gotten along" with each other. D11 remains in an academic crisis and students and families are fleeing to higher performing districts by the thousands, and the best that status quo supporters can tell us is that the board is getting along. There is no need to parody a sad group like this board when their own supporters do it so well themselves.

The saddest point to all of this is that people like McNally and Serby, who don't have kids in school, really believe that "getting along" is all that matters. They don't believe that certain kids can learn, and they don't believe that D11 can or should improve, so why bother?

The crisis continues.

Saturday, June 09, 2007

Why doesn't he just do what Irma did?

Two different government agencies, two different unions, and two totally different methods of handling felony theft. One of those government agencies was Colorado Springs School District 11; the other was the Colorado Springs Police Department.

The headline in the June 8th Gazette read: "Springs police officer arrested in mileage fraud
He claimed $1,400 after he was injured on the job"


The police officer. Neil Ashenbrenner, was arrested for fraudulently claiming a $1,400 reimbursement from the city. The teacher and labor union president, Irma Valerio, was forgiven by D11 officials after fraudulently claiming over $1,000 in reimbursement from D11.

The police labor union leadership was not quoted in the paper as trying to minimize the theft by the officer. The chances that this police officer will be back on the street as a police officer are pretty slim. The teachers' labor union leadership did the right thing by asking Valerio to step down as labor union leader, but they then claimed that it was a private matter that was of little significance to the public. Valerio will be back in the classroom for the 2007/2008 school year.

One public service agency understands that it is obligated to uphold the public trust. Police Chief Richard Myers has vowed to maintain a transparent agency because the public expects that. D11 Superintendent Terry Bishop has said nothing about the D11 theft, using the age-old excuse of "employee privacy" to keep the public in the dark. Instead, he has asked his spokesperson Elaine Naleski, to put out two contradictory statements about the incident. Her first statement was that since Valerio repaid the stolen funds after she was caught, the district would not push for charges because "legal authorities," (who were not identified) told district officials that the return of the funds erased the foul. The next statement was that "legal authorities" had been inquiring about the felony, so D11 had to turn the case over to the DA.

Using the logic of D11 officials and teachers' labor union leaders, all the police officer needs to do now that he has been caught is to pay the money back to the city. No harm, no foul. Give him his badge and weapon and place him back in a position of trust.

The police department leadership understands that the department exists to serve the community. The leadership expressed shame over this incident. D11 leadership, as usual, has been working to hide the D11 theft. No shame was expressed by anyone in a leadership role.

Two government agencies, two different approaches to managing the public trust. The total Colorado Springs Public Safety budget is $116 million, combining police and fire. The total D11 budget is nearly $500 million. The police want to be transparent with their piece of the $116 million. The school district wants the public to turn over $500 million and then turn a blind eye to the use of that money. Hence the administration's desire for a hand-picked school board comprised of weak and controllable members.

Even the liberal city council members would have been outraged had the police chief showed a ho-hum attitude towards the police theft. D11 school board members have been indifferent towards the ho-hum attitude of D11 officials. They really have no choice; their seats were purchased by the labor union and they are afraid to burn bridges.

The actions of the police leaders demonstrated respect for the community; the actions of D11 leaders, as usual, demonstrated contempt for the tax payers.

The status quo lives on.

Friday, June 01, 2007

Six months after recall, D-11 board back to ‘normal’

The School District 11 recall election is now six months in the past. Since that time, there have been no controversial headlines, no articles on individual board of education members, and apparently no disagreements in the board room. Since all current board members are madly in love with one another, teachers are free to teach and children free to learn.

Apologists for the status quo would like the community to believe that since the reformers are gone, the school district is now looking out for the best interests of the parents and students. The sad reality is that once again, no one is holding the administration or board accountable for anything. Just as in the past, the board room is empty during meetings, with the exception of a few slumbering staff members and disinterested board members, some of whom even know what is on the agenda.

During my three years on the board, every proposal or action that the reformers brought forth was met with an article or headline questioning our motives. The D-11 administration and labor union actively rallied employees against every move we made, and they both rewarded employees who took the time to protest against any reform idea that was presented. In short, D-11 employees took an active role in creating an appearance of controversy and chaos in the district. Those of us who wished to reform a district that is badly in need of reform were constantly accused of imposing secret agendas on the district.

Now that another school year has come to a close, can anyone honestly claim to have any idea what the current school board or administration have accomplished in the past six months? Probably not, but there are several items of interest to be noted. In 2003, just after we took office, the reform slate voted to televise the board meetings, giving complete and open access to every meeting. Board members were very public with our ideas and proposals. We understood that we would face scrutiny for ideas that were not approved by the education establishment, but the education debate is one that must be engaged. Where are the ideas from the current board?

Last year, we who were on the board voted to implement a pay for performance system for teachers. Without a board vote, the administration has quietly allowed this directive to die. Principals were given no performance benchmarks to achieve, so it will not be possible for incentive pay to be distributed. Also last year, we voted 6-1 to implement a site based management system wherein more money would be directed to the school buildings and principals would be granted more ownership over their schools. Again, without a vote of the board, D-11 dropped this student-centered approach to funding schools. Board president John Gudvangen and his anti-reform allies on the board all campaigned for site-based management because they knew the public liked that approach. Better to kill reform in secret than to let the public see their true agenda.

Gudvangen has since vowed at a public meeting that he would wipe clean any evidence that reformers had ever served on the D-11 board. He has further bragged to supporters that the D-11 community does not pay attention to the board anymore, so he can impose his will on the district without fear of angering the community. Where are the so-called community activists who expressed concern over secret agendas in the past? Where are the former board members who claimed to support reform but not board infighting? Reform is secretly being swept away and these watchdogs are strangely silent.

Equally troubling is the absence of The Gazette. Why are articles on the union theft and forgery scandal buried in the Metro section? Where was the article questioning the motives of the board as it voted to close a D-11 school? Where are the articles highlighting the accomplishments (or lack thereof) of the current board?

The D-11 community is exactly where status quo activists want it to be — in the dark. The fact that there are no more headlines about D-11 is not a good thing. While the district once again operates in secret with no leadership on the board, the taxpayers continue to be grossly underserved.

free html counters
Circuit City Discounts