Hey Tom, What about the Diaper?

“This dirty diaper won’t change itself.”

So declared D11 board member Tom Strand several weeks ago when discussing the issue of shuttering D11 schools, selling the buildings to wealthy developers, putting teachers on the streets, and destroying the very foundation of our public schools.

Strand was making the point that while past boards did not have the courage to do the right thing, he was going to ensure that this board would move forward and close the schools that needed to be closed. No more delays, declared Strand; it is now or never!

Uh, Tom? How does that diaper smell today?

On Wednesday evening, the D11 board punted the issue of school closure down the road yet again. Strand sat by helplessly and didn’t even offer up a fresh Pamper. In fact, he appeared to be the starting punter.

Everyone understands that the D11 school district is facing growing financial hardships as parents take their kids to districts that tend to focus their budgets on educating students rather than filling the wallets of administrative fat cats who add no value to the education equation. D11 CFO Glenn Gustafson has wanted to close schools for several years as he has watched the budget numbers grow tighter and tighter. Being more of an appeaser than a leader, Gustafson has never had the courage to publicly state his position, nor has he had the courage to speak out against the practice of superintendents hiring more and more administrators, further straining an already stretched financial position. Rather, Gustafson depends on committees and board members to carry his water. That way, if or when the public expresses its dismay over losing their neighborhood school, Gustafson can point his finger elsewhere.

Gustafson is a party to the financial mess in which the district finds itself. He claims to have trimmed over $1 million from the administrative budget last year. He claimed the same thing while I was on the board. To prove his point, he showed charts of administrative positions that were eliminated. Of course, he only showed half of the story. In response, I showed charts that showed where positions were created under different titles, leaving the spending levels exactly the same. Gustafson and other administrators also tend to “hide” administrative hires by using the purple packet process, which I have explained previously.

After spending several months discussing the 2008-2009 D11 budget with the board, the administration only recently announced that it was going to shut several neighborhood schools. Even board members who have always been absolute apologists for the lethargic administration were taken aback by this last minute attempt to close buildings with no notice, no plan, and sadly, no evidence that their actions were designed to improve education in any way. What were the criteria that the administration used to select the schools on the list? No one knows. How will these closings help the academic environment in the district? Again, no one knows, because that question was never analyzed by the administration.

Every member of this current board opposed the idea of site based management, which directs the budget to the schools based on student population and special needs at each building. Only after the schools were funded would the administration receive money for hiring administrators. Obviously, the administration adamantly opposed this type of budgeting because it would mean that the administration would certainly shrink in size. The board members opposed the site based budget concept because they were convinced by labor union handlers that this was the first step in “privatization.” In other words, if it could be shown that a school could perform well while managing its own budget, and money flowed to school buildings based on the student population, then that was an obvious attempt to make the schools function like private entities, where people would be attracted to schools that actually performed. What a horrible concept.

The only rational method by which to determine which schools should survive and which should not is by utilizing a site based budgeting model. If a school building is performing poorly and under enrolled, the budget would be equally small. The only way to increase the budget would be to increase the student count. The only way to increase the student count would be to have a quality education environment. There is nothing difficult about this concept. The communities would then be in the position to take charge of their own neighborhood schools. If they would want their building to remain open, then they would have to participate to improve their school. Teachers and administrators would have to go the extra mile to attract students to their building. If no improvement occurred, and if no students came to a building, it would die a natural death. The school budget would not sustain a failing school.

The reality today is that the district budget is being forced to sustain buildings that are half full. Money is being taken from other places in the district just to maintain the status quo. It is time to move to a site based budget and let events dictate which schools survive and which die a natural death.

It appears that the current board members are finally awakening to the reality that the administration is not going to lead D11 to excellence. It is instead leading the district towards financial troubles. Diaper Strand and other board members act surprised that the administration really doesn’t have a well thought out plan when it comes to school utilization. Oh really? Welcome to the party. Some of us have been telling them that since 2003 and before. It appears that the recall that the current board members all supported was nothing more than a $250,000 cure that targeted the wrong disease.

By the way, my comments in the opening paragraph about Strand’s desire to destroy the district and sell the buildings to developers is not true, just as it wasn’t true when Strand and his ilk made those claims about the reformers during the recall campaign in 2006. Funny that we have yet to hear from recall mouthpieces Norvelle Simpson, Annie Oakley, and Mary Ellen McNally. Who said that the recall wasn’t at all about politics?

Negotiations Update

Since my last post on the issue of the D11 labor union negotiations, Bob Null has managed to get himself on the district negotiating team. This is a big victory for Bob, who believes that the school board, being a party to the agreement, should probably be allowed to know what is happening in negotiations.

This is just a beginning for Bob and openness in public school contract talks. While Bob will be inside the negotiating room, you can be sure that the labor union leaders will use current contract language to prevent any new ideas from reaching the point of discussion. Fortunately, Bob will likely be the type who will bring this to the public's attention, meaning that he will be a marked man afterwards for daring to challenge the labor union's hold on the D11 tax payers. Unfortunately for Bob, the labor union has a lackey on the administration team. Dave Schenkel does more bidding for the labor union than he does for the residents of D11.

All that said, good job to Bob Null for taking this first step in holding the D11 labor union accountable to the public that pays its members' wages.

Just as I said

During the three years of contract negotiations between the D11 board and the labor union while I was serving on the school board, I always pointed out that the school board was completely prevented from having any knowledge of what was happening in the negotiating room. I pointed out that the board, and hence the public, were kept from having any say, even though the board is a party to the contract.

Recently, board member Bob Null has asked to sit in on the negotiations with the labor union. Normally, just the D11 administration has representative involved in negotiations. I use the term “negotiations” loosely since the administration team, led by union sycophant David Schenkel, never makes any demands of the labor union.

Holmes, Robert, and Owens (HRO) is the law firm that represents D11. Attorneys for this law firm are also involved in the labor union negotiations, although my opinion has always been that HRO does as much as the labor union to prevent the board from having a say in the contract talks.

This past week, HRO and the administration have proven that my concerns about the negotiation process are well-founded. As Bob Null continued to demand a presence at the negotiating table, the administration asked HRO to weigh in to prevent his participation. The reason given is absolutely astounding for a public entity. HRO informed Null that he could not participate in labor union negotiations because he is a member of the public. Therefore, HRO said, he could not attend negotiation sessions because the current contract clearly states that negotiations are closed to the public until at least 2010 (of course, the labor union will extend that “closed” clause well before that date).

Let me make this clear. The Master Agreement names the parties to the contract. One of those parties is the D11 school board. The other is the labor union. Members of the labor union board participate in the negotiations every year. Now you have a law firm telling an elected official, who is party to a public multi-million dollar contract and who represents the people, that he has no right to know what is occurring in negotiations of a contract to which he is a party. Equally galling is the fact that none of the other labor union purchased board members is making any effort to support Null. They are willingly allowing themselves to be frozen out of a contract process that they will then blindly vote to approve anyway.

The labor union leaders have always claimed that they were opposed to public negotiations of their public contract because the negotiations might turn into grandstanding in front of the public. All Null is asking is for him to be allowed inside the room while negotiations are occurring. The true colors of the labor union masters are shining through.

Despite all of the past denials about whether or not the school board was denied access to the negotiation process, the HRO “opinion,” which was encouraged not only by labor union leaders, but administrators as well, proves that I was correct. The contract process continues, and the D11 public is forbidden from participating. The administration, which is supposed to work for the school board on behalf of the public, does not want board members to be involved. Why would this be the case? Because the labor union and the administration (and union purchased board members) are working in-sync to get as much public funding as possible for their own wallets while denying the public the right to hold the district accountable for its ½ billion dollar budget and failing schools.