HCS What would you do to fix the problem? (Huntsville: how much, homes)

[hey teach]

OK, everyone knows about the HCS financial problems. Other than immediately ridding ourselves of Dr. Moore and/or board members, what are your suggestions for immediate actions that could be a beginning for fixing the problems.

We all understand it will take years to dig out of this mess, but everything is something. Let's get serious about what to do. What are your thoughts?

[Reactionary]

To start, I encourage everyone to watch Dr. Pouncey's presentation on ETV (Comcast Channel 17 and Knology Channel 71) - it will be running all week at 10AM, 2PM, 6PM and 10PM. I attended the meeting at which the presentation was made - here's my write up:

The Defining Moment | flashpoint (http://www.flashpointblog.com/2011/01/07/the-defining-moment/ - broken link)

Attend the School Board meeting Thursday January 20 at 5:30PM in the Merts Center 200 White Street. The meeting will be aired on ETV but attending in person is better because it shows the school board that people are engaged in the issue. The school board members try to greet everyone before the meeting - make sure you meet your district's board member.

IMO the groundwork is being done to remove Dr. Moore from the decision-making process and appoint an 'Acting' Superintendent. The Huntsville Times editor called for that in Sunday's paper. Here's my summary of recent Times articles with links plus other stuff:

It’s a management problem | flashpoint (http://www.flashpointblog.com/2011/01/09/its-a-management-problem/ - broken link)

The schedule for developing plans / budgets / layoffs / closings is pretty tight. The decisions on layoffs must be ready before school lets out for Summer (due to contracts). The schools have a lot of work to do and not much time to do it - the State expects a definitive plan within a month or so.

I like to research how other people have dealt with similar situations - some of the best info I found regarded Kansas City (be sure to read the linked articles):

Lessons from Kansas City | flashpoint (http://www.flashpointblog.com/2011/01/07/lessons-from-kansas-city/ - broken link)

I would remove Dr. Moore and her staff from the decision-making process (the new Superintendent in KC asked for resignations from all senior staff and administrators from assistant principal on up - 're-hiring' after review). The State and school system have all the information they need to make decisions without assistance.

Even though the school board proved itself to be incompetent, we the people elected them (elections have consequences). Recall petitions / elections are legal in Alabama, but time-consuming enough that we're stuck with the board for the near term. Three of the five school board members were just elected (two were re-elected).

Raising taxes to fund a proven fiscally irresponsible school system would be impossible - not an option.

If we don't cut services and teachers, the State will do it for us. There is no choice but to cut hundreds of people (more than the couple of hundred laid off last summer). There will be excess staff / teachers when schools are closed - I have little confidence that merit will have any effect on who gets laid off. I would gut the Central Office.

If we don't close schools, the State will do it for us. I've heard that about 10 schools will be closed (out of 50 schools for 23,000 students) - my guess is that most of the closings will be in West and Northwest HSV where schools are under 50% capacity, but Monte Sano ES and Farley ES may also be on the block. Closing Monte Sano would be stupid - it is at capacity - but it may be closed as a symbolic gesture. I don't expect Butler to survive.

Closing schools means rezoning - the deseg order complicates things and whatever plan is developed will have to be approved by the Feds. IMO the transfer student policies have made the problems worse (students busing from poorly performing schools into overcrowded schools - the schools become financially unbalanced and busing cost increase). I would like to focus on keeping / creating neighborhood schools.

If we don't cut school buses by about 20%, the State will do it for us. Students should expect much longer commute times (IIRC the State expects an "average" commute of about an hour - meaning some kids could expect to be on the bus for 1 1/2 hours). We spend $3 million on buses plus the $4 million provided by the State.

Those three areas are pretty much it: people, facilities, and transportation are the cost drivers. Many of the decisions have been made for us through the school board and Dr. Moore's inaction - the State now says cut these things, so we must (in other words we have few options left).

Longer term - we need to hire a new superintendent under a contract that costs less and is easier to terminate. We need to get out from under the deseg order. We need to replace the two school board members who are up for re-election in 2012. We need to focus on better accounting and budgeting practices. Stop falling for the latest improvement schemes (like school uniforms now or pod construction then) - focus on basics. Kids (in general) don't have diverse needs - a good teacher and a clean school go a long way.

I wish we could get a do over on the under-construction Lee HS and Blossomwood ES. Lee is in a bad location (crossing busy train tracks to get to sports fields) and Blossomwood is planned to squeeze 800 kids into a 500 kid space (IIRC violating State codes). IMO these projects will prove to be as bad as the jail.

[hey teach]

Thank you for this very thoughtful response, Reactionary. Surely, there are other opinions.

[Reactionary]

Reactionary = "Closing Monte Sano would be stupid - it is at capacity"

I should roll back the "stupid" part of that comment - the rationale for closing Monte Sano will be that the schools are going to standard sizes (~800 students for an elementary school). That's a valid economics-based argument - it may not be the best situation for those kids, but it's not stupid.

The school system is going to have fewer, but larger schools (at least 800 students per school). BTW 23,000 students divided by 800 per school equals 29 schools (we have about 50) - we could see more than 10 schools close.

Also looks like about 500 employees will be laid off.

[daac09]

What do you think that the time frame will be for rolling out a plan for layoffs, re-zoning, etc?

I know that there will be lots of changes, and as mother of a 1st grader and a 4-year-old (to be a kindergartener next fall), I'm wondering if we should be looking seriously into private school now. My son surprised me, though, by asking me to please not do that because he LOVES his school and doesn't want to go anywhere else (which is actually pretty good anecdotal evidence that someone there is doing something right).

[zenjenn]

Reactionary has some excellent thoughts, but I don't see education as a solvable problem, here or anywhere else, unless the entire mentality of both educators and parents changes when it comes to public education. Reactionary's approach might begin to work if parents and teachers could be counted on not to fight it every step of the way. My own neighbors made a federal case about our community being cut from the bus route from a school barely more than two miles away, and in the end, after a media flurry and a lot of outrage, we got on the bus route. When schools closed because of the swine flu scare (which I myself felt was alarmist), I know folks who protested not because it was alarmist, but because they felt it was unjust that they would have to arrange and pay for for childcare for their own children.

In this mindset, it is often seen as the school's responsibility to provide transportation, child care, discipline, nutrition, special services for increasingly minor issues, etc. In theory these things are nice and maybe in some cases necessary, but what we have here and elsewhere in the country (big problems in California schools right now) is a runaway train that transfers responsibility from the parents to the education system, and schools are going broke trying to meet all needs real and imagined. Add to red-tape approach to education reform that makes the politics of curriculum design, selection, and acquisition a needlessly costly affair that puts more money in the textbook industry than in classrooms (and that racket runs up through public colleges and universities, too.)

That Madison is faring better than HCS I suspect might have to do with narrower demographics as much as anything else.

[hey teach]

The state department requested a plan by March. I feel certain most everyone will be informed before school is out.

[Maledictorian]

I have some questions for this thread, perhaps they're rhetorical..

How did we educate the baby boomers?

Speaking of baby boomers, how did we get them to school?

How does Finland pull off their public education system which is arguably the finest in the world? If you mention Socialism to answer this question then you automatically fail considering this is a discussion about education.

Why do the people we elect immediately screw us the minute they're sworn into office?

Just wondering that's all..

[Mawoods]

Originally Posted by Maledictorian

I have some questions for this thread, perhaps they're rhetorical..

How did we educate the baby boomers?

Speaking of baby boomers, how did we get them to school?

How does Finland pull off their public education system which is arguably the finest in the world? If you mention Socialism to answer this question then you automatically fail considering this is a discussion about education.

Why do the people we elect immediately screw us the minute they're sworn into office?

Just wondering that's all..

As a baby boomer I remember DISCIPLINE, RESPECT, and a little FEAR in school. I think that would go a long way these days.

I didn't learn about sex education per se but I learned about the classics in literature and Greek mythology, along with Latin. We read the classics and discussed them. Everyone knew who Walt Whitman or Silas Marner was. History was taught. We are continually astounded how much recent history young people do not know these days. And we got out and played ball in recess.
Granted our math was probably not up to what today's standards are, but we were challenged and had to get it. I don't remember a teacher particularly being concerned about my self esteem.

There were standards and consequences to breaking them. I feared my parents wrath more than the teacher's if I did something wrong. Teachers were not afraid of students or parents.

I think Zen is correct. We expect the education system to do everything today. Parents have abdicated their responsibilities. And I do not buy all the stuff about moms being home back then. There were plenty of 2 working parent homes.

I don't think it was all perfect but today we have an expectation of the government doing all for us. My mom came home from work and helped us with homework for hours every night. There was never an expectation of anything less than work until you get it.

[daac09]

I'm not sure that abdication of parental responsibility is the biggest problem here, or at least it is not something that sets the Huntsville City School system apart as the most indebted system in the state. I know that my husband and I are far more involved in our kids' schools and overall education than either of our parents ever were, and at my son's school there is far more parental involvement on a routine basis than there was in the public school system that I attended as a kid. Maybe parents' expectations are too high in some cases, but expectations are getting a lot lower now that we know the extent of the fiscal hole that the system is in.

There are a lot of factors at work here, but the biggest has to be poor management. How did the system get so far in the hole without someone saying "Maybe we should cut back on clerical support staff..." or "Our bus system needs to be more efficient..."? Dr. Moore should absolutely not have a role in the crucial decisions that now have to be made. We may be stuck with the school board, at least in the short term, but getting a new superintendent in place, even on a interim/acting basis is critical to this process and to the public's acceptance of it, I think.

As for cutting costs, difficult and painful changes will have to be made to become a system that is sustainable with existing resources. Change the bus system, cut non-teacher staff as much as possible... every little bit helps. But the severity of the problem means that schools will have to be consolidated, closed, and re-zoned, and many teachers will also have to be fired. It makes me angry to think that these things could have been done gradually over a decade or more as this debt was building. But since they were not, drastic change has to come now. There are many wonderful teachers and students in this system, and hopefully some of the positives can remain through this difficult time. I really believe that if the city school system deteriorates to the point that there is flight to private schools or out of the city limits by anyone who can afford it, then we all (as a community) lose.