I-SS AYP Comparisons

As was recently reported in the Statesville Record & Landmark, the NC Department of Public Instruction has released the preliminary 2009-10 Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) scores. For the 09-10 school year, 19 of 35 (54.3%) of the I-SS schools met the AYP standards. This is quite a drop from the 08-09 school year when 28 of 35 (80.0%) of the I-SS schools met the AYP standards.

For more information you can read the Record & Landmark on-line article following the first link below or check out the AYP information on the I-SS web site using the second link below.

Record & Landmark AYP article

I-SS web site AYP information

Below is a comparison of the I-SS scores for the last two school years.
(Click on an image to enlarge it.)

Although the AYP scores are not the only indication of the quality of a given school it is an important measure that must be taken seriously when evaluating schools. There are many factors that determine the success of a school and the I-SS administration must examine these factors and find a true path to success.

Perhaps I-SS should take a close look at the Mooresville Graded School district, which had 6 out of 8 (75.0%) of their schools meet the AYP standards. The Mooresville Graded School district has made a concentrated effort to integrate technology in all classrooms and to get computers into the hands of all students. I think that it is time for I-SS to move away from the current I-SS model (aka Baldrige) and move students into the twenty-first century.

Creativity vs. Standardization

There is an interesting article available on CNN.com titled How Schools Stifle Creativity by Sir Ken Robinson Ph.D. It also includes a video of a talk Sir Robinson gave at the 2006 TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference. Sir Robinson speaks of how educational institutions often stifle the creativity of students. The following are some statements that Sir Robinson makes in the article.

“What is the argument? In a nutshell, it's that we're all born with immense natural talents but our institutions, especially education, tend to stifle many of them and as a result we are fomenting a human and an economic disaster.”

“In education, this vast waste of talent involves a combination of factors. They include a narrow emphasis on certain sorts of academic work; the exile of arts, humanities and physical education programs from schools; arid approaches to teaching math and sciences; an obsessive culture of standardized testing and tight financial pressures to teach to the tests.”

“It happens in part because the dominant systems of education are rooted in the values and demands of industrialism: they are linear, mechanistic and focused on conformity and standardization. Nowadays, they're buttressed by major commercial interests in mass testing and by the indiscriminate use of prescription drugs that keep students' minds from wandering to things they naturally find more interesting.”

“There's a wealth of talent that lies in all of us. All of us, including those who work in schools, must nurture creativity systematically and not kill it unwittingly.”

I-SS must follow State and Federal regulations, but in the last several years the administration has put in place a ‘one size fits all’ application of the Baldrige plan. This has forced teachers to comply with an I-SS mandated standardized mechanism of PAs, PDSAs, formative assessments, PLCs, IF lead meetings, plus/deltas, and the like. Teachers are left with little time or energy to truly promote student creativity.

At Monday’s Committee of the Whole meeting, two teachers gave enthusiastic presentations of how they use Predictive Assessments in their classrooms. I am glad that these teachers have been able to integrate this mechanism in their classrooms and use it to enable their students to succeed. The problem is that the Board members and the administrators see these presentations and think that since this instructional method is working in these classrooms, then it should work in all classrooms. Educational studies have shown that teachers need the freedom to use whatever instructional methods best suit the strengths and talents of their students. These two teachers were invited to speak at the Committee of the Whole meeting. There are many I-SS teachers who successfully use other instructional approaches to inspire their students to learn. Why doesn’t the administration invite them to speak at School Board meetings?

Click on the link below to access Sir Robinson’s article and video.

How schools stifle creativity

Ron Clark Academy

CNN.com has an excellent report about the Ron Cark Academy in Atlanta. The academy uses non-traditional methods to energize students and to encourage them to learn.

In the report Ron Clark states: “It all involves with the teachers. You can talk about the state government. You can talk about principals, superintendents. It all comes down to finding passionate people who want to teach. We have to give teachers more freedom, trust them more, and allow them to use their own creativity to fire up their students in the way they know they need to be.”

We need a superintendent who is going to be like Ron Clark. We need a superintendent who will encourage teachers to use their passion for teaching. In the report there was no talk of Baldrige principles. The Baldrige model, as implemented by I-SS, does not give teachers the freedom and trust that they need to be creative in their classrooms.

Click on the link below to access the CNN report.

Ron Clark Academy

SHS Advisory Meeting

My wife and I attended the first of the Advisory meetings designed to allow the public an opportunity to participate in the selection process for the new superintendent. I think I now know what it is like to attend a Baldrige meeting. While Mr. Johnson and others were speaking my wife would inform me as they used Baldrige terminology. We even ended the meeting doing a plus-delta chart.

Brady gave a brief welcome and then turned the meeting over to two ‘volunteers,’ Paul and Terri, who had been asked to lead the meeting. I did not get their last names. Paul did most of the instructing of what we were to do. I did get the impression that Paul was actively involved in the last superintendent search. I was hoping there would be an open discussion, but as it turned out things were much more structured. There was really no opportunity to simply discuss what the participants wanted or did not want in a superintendent.

We were given a stack of sticky notes and asked to think about what priorities we would like the new superintendent to address and then write our ideas on the sticky notes with only one idea on each notes. The notes were taken and sorted by content and placed on different sheets of chart paper. Each sheet was given a corresponding category label.

As we were writing the notes Brady described the I-SS Proposed Strategic Plan for 2009 – 2012. The items on the plan are very similar to the items that were on the Strategic Plan Survey. Brady did allow for some questions as he went over the plan. For me this presentation of the Strategic Plan while we were trying to complete our notes was a big distraction and took away from the main task of the meeting. It may have even been a veiled attempt to influence the focus of the notes.

After Brady was finished with his presentation and after the notes were sorted the sheets were placed a different tables. The different categories were Non-traditional Student Programs, Personal Qualities, Funding, Harmonious Relationships, Staff Needs, and Student Achievement. Everyone was then asked to select a category and go to that particular table. The individuals at each table were then to group the sticky notes related to the particular categories into groups of related ideas or sub-topics and then to write a statement that described that idea. We were then each given four sticky dots and ask to go around to the various tables and vote for what we thought were the four main ideas of all of the ones listed. These will be tallied and put with the results of the other advisory meetings and then this would be reported to the School Board. They did say that they would also make a list of all of the ideas that were on the individual sticky notes.

Next, they asked what were the character traits or experience and the strengths we would like to see in the new superintendent. They had two chart tablets on easels and wrote ‘Strengths’ at the top of one chart and ‘Character Traits and Experience’ at the top of the other. Then everyone was asked to verbally suggest different strengths or characteristics to be listed on these sheets. Once all of the traits were listed on one sheet or the other, we were give two blue sticky dots and two orange sticky dots. We then were instructed to use the orange dots to vote for two of the listed strengths and the two blue dots to vote for two of the listed character traits/experiences. These will also be tallied and reported to the School Board.

Finally there was a chart divided into two parts with plus listed on one side and delta on the other. We were then asked to use sticky notes to list things that we thought went well with the meeting and place those notes on the plus side of the chart. We were also asked to use the sticky notes to list things that we thought should have been done differently and place those on the delta side.

Overall, I would say that the basic procedures used in the meeting were good and could help if the Board really considers the results. However, there were some problems. The biggest problem was that there were not many teachers or community members in attendance. There seemed to be as many if not more I-SS administrators present and participating in the process. Now, don’t get me wrong, I think that the school administrators should participate in the process of selecting the new superintendent. It is just that there were a disproportionate number of administrators at this meeting and that tended to skew the results. For example, there were a large number of votes for the item relating to data driven principles. Apparently, these administrators want to continue using the Baldrige model.

I strongly encourage parents, community members, and teachers to participate in these meetings. If all of these advisory meetings end up being like this one, we are going to have another Holliday as superintendent. From the comments left on this blog it is obvious that most readers of the blog do not want that to happen. Thus, it is imperative that you attend at least one of these meetings and let your intentions be known. Encourage your friends and your children’s teachers to attend as well. The next advisory meeting is on Oct. 13^th at North Iredell High School.

Another problem I saw with the meeting was that there was only one School Board member in attendance. As you might suspect that individual was Mr. John Rogers. From what I could tell, Mr. Rogers did not actively participate in the meeting. But he was there to observe and to listen to what was said. Mr. Rogers, thank you for taking the time to attend the meeting.

Message From and To Mr. Johnson

Recently I sent Mr. Johnson an e-mail that dealt with a couple issues. One of those issues was the raises received by the Central Office administrators who were recently moved into interim positions. The following is the response I received from Mr. Johnson regarding that part of my e-mail.

Thank you Paul. The information about the salaries has caused a lot of dissension at a time when I was really trying to build consensus. I sure wish there was a way that I could convince everyone to pull in the same direction.

Brady Johnson, Interim Superintendent

I then replied to Mr. Johnson based on the comments and suggestions given on this blog as well as comments and suggestions I have received in e-mails from teachers and from speaking directly with a number of teachers. The text of my reply is given below.

Brady,

I understand your justification behind the salary increases for the Central Office personnel who were moved into the interim positions. However, you know that, due to many factors including the cuts in the state budget, teachers and other I-SS staff have also had to take on new responsibilities but they were not given salary increases. I think it is fair to say that, for many, the perception is that teachers and others did not get the raises due to the fact they did not receive fancy new titles to go along with their new responsibilities.

That being said, I do think that you can convince everyone to pull in the same direction but it is going to take more than words. You mentioned at the citizen's meeting that you wanted to take some of the pressure off of the teachers and that you were lighten up and tweak the application of the Baldrige plan. From what I have heard, that is not occurring, at least not at a number of schools. There only a few new teachers this year. That means that most of the teachers are quite familiar with the application of the Baldrige model. I recommend that you give teachers the freedom to decide how much of the Baldrige model they want to apply to their classes. Contrary to what Dr. Holliday thought, the majority of the I-SS teachers do know how to teach and they need the freedom and the time to implement a teaching style that best meets the needs of their students. You said that you expect the principals to know their teachers. Thus they should know if a teacher is struggling and be able to provide help as needed. Don't force remediation on teachers who do not need it.

The IFs can best be used to provide help as needed, not to pound teachers with all the Baldrige ideology and acronyms. At the citizen's meeting you also said you also wanted to change to role of the IFs. But apparently that has not changed either. You said that you wanted the IFs to be a true resource like the Lead Teacher that worked with you and your teachers when you were a principal. I am afraid that the only way that is going to happen is if there is a radical change in the IF model. Too many teachers see the IFs as they have seen them in the last couple of years and apparently many IFs want to continue doing what they have done in the past. I think you have to sever the direct connection between the IFs and the Central Office. Keep the IFs in the schools all day every day and have them report directly to the principal. They can meet after school like the teachers do. Another idea is to change the title from IF back to Lead Teacher. There is a lot of baggage associated with the IF title.

Again, let teachers teach. You said that principals and other school staff are at there to support the teachers as they enable the students to learn. Make sure everyone knows that. You said you see the PLC as a valuable teacher resource. I agree, but let the teachers meet and work together and share ideas without the IF getting in the way. If the teachers need the help of the IF/Lead Teacher, they can ask for that help. Why do the teachers have to keep a PLC notebook and turn it in to the IF? Let the teachers set the structure of the PLC to meet their needs not the needs of the IF.

I know that I do not have your experience as a public school teacher and administrator. Certainly my experience is that of a College instructor, although I did earn a High School teaching certificate when I was in undergraduate school. But, I have been married to Pam for 30 years and she has kept me informed over the years of various school procedures. In addition, we have a number of friends who are I-SS teachers and I have also been communicating with a number of teachers via the Citizen's group, my blog, and e-mail. Therefore, I did want to share my thoughts with you based on those contacts.

I know that as interim superintendent there is only so much you can do and that you already have a lot on your plate. From what I have seen and heard, teachers and other I-SS teachers are willing to work with you but they have to know that you are willing to work with them and that the attitude of the Central Office has changed.

Thank you,

Paul Klaene

If you also wish to send a message to Mr. Johnson his e-mail address is listed below.

bjohnson@iss.k12.nc.us

Report of the Meeting with Mr. Johnson

The meeting with Mr. Brady Johnson went very well. It was well attended both by teachers and citizens. Mr. John Rogers, School Board Member, and Mr. Larry Rogers, SHS Principal, were also in attendance.

The meeting started with Mr. Johnson telling everyone a little bit about his background in education as a teacher and as an administrator. He then went on to tell about the start of school and his goals as interim superintendent. As part of that he related some of the achievements of the school system such as the ABC scores, the schools that met AYP, and SAT scores. Mr. Johnson also told how the I-SS scores related to other schools in the state. Overall, I-SS is doing well. For example, with respect to the SAT scores, I-SS ranks 12^th in the state.

Mr. Johnson also talked of the principal’s focus group that was held last spring and that the three main issues brought forth from that session were inconsistent communications within the school system, the IFs were not evaluated by the principals, and that the Central Office did not value the input of the principals. To address those and other issues, Mr. Johnson said he asked the principals to meet and evaluate a number of school processes. He said that one of the processes that principals recommended fixing was the role of the IFs. Mr. Johnson then related some of the changes he put in place to do that such as having the IFs report to the principals and that the IFs will now be away from their schools only a half-day a week for ‘training’ instead of one full day a week.

Of course, Mr. Johnson also spoke of the Baldrige plan and that he saw the Baldrige system as one that aligns everyone in an organization so that everyone is working together toward a common goal. He also added that in the past the application of the Baldrige plan has been somewhat heavy handed at that there were plans in place to take some of the pressure off teachers. Speaking of teachers, Mr. Johnson said that he sees teachers as partners and that every other employee at a school should be working to support the teachers.

In addition, Mr. Johnson described the tentative plans for the search for the new superintendent. He said the process would start Tuesday at the I-SS Committee of the Whole Meeting when a representative of the NC School Boards Association will inform the I-SS Board of their obligations regarding the search procedure. Mr. Johnson added that there would be advisory meetings held at each High School during which the public will have input as to what qualities to look for in the new superintendent. There will also be student advisory meetings and staff advisory meetings. Mr. Johnson also said that there would probably be some type of electronic survey. He said that he expected that applications would have to be in by December or January and that interviews would probably start in February with the final selection to be in March or April.

Following this was the question and answer period. There were a number of good questions and, although I am sure that not everyone was completely satisfied with all the answers, I do think it would be fair to say that Mr. Johnson took the time to sincerely answer each question. Someone asked why the principals were surveyed but the teachers were not. Mr. Johnson stated that he expected the principals to know their teachers and thus to speak for them. There were questions and comments about Baldrige and the role of the IFs. Mr. Johnson again said that changes were being made and that he met with the principals and the IFs together and that he would be meeting with just the IFs to clarify his perspective of their role in the schools. I asked how he was making it known that he saw teachers as partners and that other school employees were working for the teachers. Mr. Johnson said that he had visited some 14 schools and that he was trying to get to the others soon and that he was trying to meet with many individuals at each school. He said that he would like to meet with everyone at their staff meetings but that staff meetings were on Tuesdays and that it would take over 30 weeks to get to every school. Someone then suggested that if he did go to staff meetings that he should take time to meet with just the teachers so that they could speak freely.

There were questions and comments about the EC program and IEPs. As well there were some questions and comments about the continued fear of teachers to speak out. There were also some questions of Mr. John Rogers who at one point commented that in the past the Board would instruct Dr. Holliday to do certain things and that he would often turn around and do something else. That, of course, led to some other questions and comments.

In conclusion everyone seemed to be very appreciative of Mr. Johnson for taking the time to meet with the group and several individuals spoke highly of their interactions with Mr. Johnson in the past. I know that this is not a complete description of the meeting. I did not take copious notes but I did try to cover a lot of what was said. Perhaps others who were at the meeting could leave a comment and fill in the gaps in my narrative or correct me if I did not relate things correctly. I know that Janey Munday gave her impression of the meeting in a comment to a previous post.

Meeting with Mr. Brady Johnson

As I mentioned in my previous post, I had the opportunity to meet with Brady Johnson. We met for about 2 hours on Wednesday afternoon. Mr. Johnson had contacted me a number of days ago and asked me to meet with him on his first official day as interim superintendent. I must say that it felt good to go from being shunned at the Central Office to being invited back. One of the first things Mr. Johnson did during the meeting was to give me a heartfelt apology for the incident when Dr. Holliday told me to leave the Central Office. Mr. Johnson said that, although he was not at the Central Office that day, the office staff told him that I had been cooperative and polite. He said that things could have been handled in a much better way. Mr. Johnson said that in the future I will have the full cooperation of the I-SS staff and that there will be a greater focus on customer service. He also told me that I no longer have to go through the attorney in Raleigh if I want to request access to school records. He said that, other than confidential information, all records will be available for inspection and that anyone wanting access to school records should make that request to Dawn Creason, I-SS Director of Public Relations.

I asked Mr. Johnson if there would be significant changes under his leadership. He made the analogy that the school system is like a sailing ship with the captain stepping away from the helm and he has been asked to take the helm for a while. Mr. Johnson said that he is not going to change the course of the ship but he is going to trim the sails a bit to make sure things go properly. For example, he said that he sees the principals as the CEOs of the schools and that he is not going to micromanage them but he does want to give them the tools they need to do their jobs. He said that he had met with the principals, assistant principals, the Instructional Facilitators and some of the Central Office staff in the morning and that one of things he talked about was the situation with the Ifs. Mr. Johnson said that at some schools the Ifs are doing a great job but at other schools they are not. He said that the situation needed to be fixed. He also said that the principals were meeting Wednesday afternoon and that they were given a list of initiatives that were currently being used in the school system and they were to take each one and tag it as something to keep, fix, or abandon. Classroom walk-throughs and Baldrige wallpapering were on the list.

Speaking of the Baldrige initiative, I did ask him if that was going to continue. Mr. Johnson said that it would continue but not in such a heavy handed way. He said that since I-SS did win the Baldrige Award they could now take different approach. Mr. Johnson said he wanted to reduce the stress levels and that he wanted I-SS employees enjoy showing up for work each morning. He also said that he agrees with the philosophy that you should work smarter and not harder. He said that much would depend on the results of the afternoon principal’s meeting. Mr. Johnson also spoke more of the role of the Ifs. He said that the IF should be a master teacher and not a dictator. He said that IFs should be working with teachers rather than talking down to them. In addition, Mr. Johnson also said that the IFs should be reporting to the principals and that the principals will be evaluating the Ifs instead of the Ifs evaluating the principals. He reiterated that he wants the principals to be in charge.

Mr. Johnson did emphasize that all of this was to ensure student achievement. He said that he wants every classroom to be high functioning. One, where any parent would want his or her child. We talked a little bit about the ranking of the school system and he said that everyone is comparing schools these days and that the ranking based on various tests will continue. I then asked Mr. Johnson about Dr. Holliday’s formula and he said that Dr. Holliday may have devised his own formula but again said that some ranking will continue. (Mr. Johnson later sent me an e-mail saying that he spoke to Pam Schiffman and explained to her that I was interested in the I-SS process for ranking in the top ten. He went on to say that Ms. Schiffman designed this process and that she is more than willing to sit down with us and explain the formulas.) As part of all of this, I asked Mr. Johnson about all of the testing and especially about the testing during the first week of school. He said that he felt that it was important in order to determine the abilities and knowledge of each student since the teacher is expected to tailor the lessons to each student.

We talked about the search for the new superintendent and Mr. Johnson said that it could possibly take as little as three months and that it did need to be completed within a year. He said that he plans to retire June 30^th and that he is not interested in the superintendent’s position. He said that it was his understanding that the Board would consider candidates both from within the system and from outside the system and that there would input from teachers, other employees, and citizens. Mr. John Rogers, who joined the meeting about an hour after it started, confirmed this.

I asked Mr. Johnson about employee morale and he said that he knew that it was not what it should be. He said that he wanted students and teachers to go home knowing it was a good day. Mr. Johnson also said that he wanted to restore the trust factor and that he wanted all employees to be treated professionally. He said that he wanted teachers and all employees to know that they could speak out without fear of retribution. He did say that he does believe in the chain of command and that parents should talk with their child’s teacher before going to the principal and that teachers should go to their principal before going to him, but that in the end the buck stops with him.

Mr. Johnson did ask me to let all of the readers of this blog that he is very willing to meet with anyone who has a concern about the school system. He said he may not have the answer to each question and that if needed he would work hard to find someone who does have the answer. I asked Mr. Johnson if he would be willing to meet with the citizen’s group and he not only said yes, he said we could meet at a school facility. As I mentioned before, Mr. Rogers was also at the meeting and he said that he felt that the Board would also be willing to meet with the citizen’s group. In addition, Mr. Rogers said that the Board has to do a better job of answering citizen’s questions.

Here are a few odds and ends. Mr. Johnson also told me the following. As a winner of the Baldrige Award, I-SS does have some obligations to fulfill such as going to receive the award and making some presentations at conferences, but the expenses for those will be paid with money the system received because they won the award. I-SS should not have to order any more materials or services from Jim Shipley and Associates. Mrs. Holliday is continuing to work for the system in the same capacity but that when the house is sold and all matters here are finalized she will be moving to Kentucky.

In conclusion, this was a very good meeting. I do think that Mr. Johnson intends to make sure that the true focus is on the students and that he is very willing to listen to all sides and factions. And I did get the impression that, although there might not be as many changes within the school system as some were hoping, there will be a number of positive changes.

Now let me add this. It is very late as I write this and I majored in Physics not English so please excuse my writing style and any grammatical mistakes.

I-SS Bloat Mimics UNC-CH Bloat

A teacher sent me a link to an article on The News & Observer web site. The article is titled Report finds bloat at UNC: Layers of leaders stifle efficiency. Here is a link to the article.

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/higher_education/story/1616489.html

The following are some excerpts from the article.

UNC-Chapel Hill has too many supervisors, bloated administrative costs and a bureaucracy that hamstrings everything from assigning courses to classrooms to purchasing supplies, a consultant has concluded.

Bain & Company, an efficiency expert hired to examine the university's financial processes, will present a 107-page report Thursday suggesting an institution with too many layers.

The report found that the campus, with an annual operating budget of about $2 billion, spends more on administrative costs than it does on academics…

It examines administrative structures and spending practices across the university and proposes dozens of areas where money could be saved.

UNC-CH is 10 layers deep in some areas, meaning that a worker has nine people above him on the organizational ladder. And more than half of campus supervisors oversee three or fewer workers. UNC-CH should eliminate some supervisors and give more control to those who continue in those roles, the report said. Fewer management layers would lead to fewer meetings and less duplication, and could save up to $12 million annually…

The teacher who sent me the link to the article said that the situation at UNC seems very similar to the top-heavy nature of I-SS and I agree. How many excessive meetings were held by Dr. Holliday and his Baldrige cronies and just how much administrative duplication is there at the Central Office? The bloat at the Central Office has been mentioned numerous times in this blog. The citizens of Iredell County might not be able to anything about the bloat at UNC-CH but we can do something about the bloat at I-SS. We might not be able to save millions but we could save thousands of dollars.

Perhaps all this time Dr. Holliday thought of himself as a university chancellor and not as a superintendent. For all his talk about quality, Dr. Holliday certainly never seemed to show any true evidence of being a quality superintendent.

Record and Landmark Editorial

The following is taken from the editorial titled I-SS Making Strides that was printed in Thursday's edition of the Statesville Record & Landmark. Unfortunately it is not available on the paper's web site.

The article starts with the statements:

Iredell-Statesville Schools officials aren't completely satisfied with the district's showing in the Adequate Yearly Progress report for 2008-09.

That's the right and politically correct thing to say, but the results - combined with rising SAT scores and graduation rates - provide another sign that I-SS is moving in the right direction.

The article then ends with the following statement:

Parents, teachers, and taxpayers should expect Mr. Johnson and other top administrators to continue on the course set by Dr. Holliday until the school board advises otherwise.

Yes, I-SS has had a number of successes over the last few years, but as has been pointed out in this blog, many of those successes have been in spite of Dr. Holliday's initiatives rather than because of them. As the records have shown, Dr. Holliday has spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer's dollars to implement his version of the Baldrige plan. A plan that has alienated many students, parents, teachers, teacher assistants, and other Iredell Citizens.

As many people have commented on this blog, Mr. Johnson is known to be an honest and professional man who has the student's best interests at heart. I personally hope that Mr. Johnson is given the freedom to change the focus of the administration away from the superintendent and toward the students.

I suggest that we thank Mr. Johnson for agreeing to take the interim position and offer him our support.

Janey Munday's Message to the Baord

Now that Dr.Holliday is leaving, I strongly urge you to look closely at the replacement for his job. Not only the immediate one but the person that will replace him full time. We need someone who has been in the system and has strong ties to our community. Not someone who will come, make a name for themselves on the backs of our employees and students, and then leave for greener pastures. I am sure that you are aware of the unrest in our schools and community because of the Baldrige program. I ask that you not hand over the reins to someone who will continue to force our teachers to use a program that so many of them are unhappy with, but will look for someone who has had success without this stress. I also hope that you will make it possible for the citizens of Iredell County to have an input into the process.

Thank you for your time,
Janey Munday
Retired teacher

More Baldrige Expenditures

This past Wednesday (7/15/09) I had another appointment to view school records. Of course I had to arrange the appointment with the I-SS attorney in Raleigh. It is a hassle to schedule appointments this way, but at least I am getting a better response to my requests to inspect school records. There was no observer in the room with me this time. Again, I spent much of the time reviewing invoices from Jim Shipley and Associates (JSA). I inspected some other documents as well and I will write about those in a later post.

Last time I looked at the JSA invoices dated from August 2003 to June 2005. In that two-year period, I-SS paid JSA $90,739.97 for Baldrige materials and training. This time I inspected the JSA invoices dated from July 2005 to May 2007. In this two-year period, I-SS paid JSA $114,008.40 for Baldrige materials and training.

Included this time were payments to have Brenda Clark provide training and consulting for a total of 14 days at $2,050.00 per day and payments to have Marty Moore provide training and consulting for a total of 22 days at $1,800.00 per day. There was even a payment to have Jim Shipley provide training and consulting for 2 days at $2,050.00 per day. Of course these individuals had to travel to Iredell County in order to provide this training. Thus, in addition to these daily rates, I-SS paid the travel expenses for Ms. Clark to make 7 round trips, for Ms. Clark to make 9 round trips, and for Mr. Shipley to make 1 round trip.

As in the previous two years, a number of I-SS administrators also traveled to Florida for Baldrige training. There was a registration payment of $1625.00 to JSA in May 2006 for five administrators to attend a two-day training session. And, there was a registration payment of $600.00 to JSA in April 2007 for three administrators to attend a different two-day training session. Since the travel expenses were not paid to JSA there was no invoice indicating the cost to send these administrators to Florida for the training.

I-SS is in the process of firing 65 teacher assistants. I think that these expenditures show that most, if not all, of these positions could have been saved if the school system was not spending an extraordinary amount of money to force students to endure the consequences of continuing the I-SS implementation of the Baldrige plan. As I mentioned before, there are thousands of school systems in this country achieving significant successes without using the Baldrige method.

Holliday Praised in R & L Editorial

Post updated on July 9th.

The Statesville Record & Landmark has an editorial in today's paper in which they talk about Dr. Holliday's bid to be Kentucky's next education commissioner. Here is a link to the on-line version of the editorial.

Kentucy bound?

The editorial states that Dr. Holliday's selection as one of the finalists for the Kentucky position is an honor for I-SS and that it comes on the heels of Holliday's selection as NC Superintendent of the year and the selection of I-SS for a 2008 Baldrige National Quality Award.

The editorial does not mention the selection process for the Superintendent's award. There was no statewide vote taken and the I-SS teachers/teacher assistants were not asked for their opinions. Dr. Holliday simply submitted his own application for the award and had his buddies in the Central Office write letters of recommendation. Then the NC superintendents association looked at the applications submitted and decided whose turn it was to receive the award this year.

Speaking of the Baldrige award, the editorial does not mention the amount of money that the Baldrige effort has cost the school system. In the time that Dr. Holliday has been superintendent, I-SS has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in salaries for Central Office administrators whose primary job is to push the Baldrige model, thousands of dollars a year for Baldrige materials, thousands of dollars for Baldrige Consultants, thousands of dollars for Baldrige training, and thousands of dollars for travel to Baldridge seminars. This is all money that could have been used to provide the resources needed in the classrooms and to keep the 70 Teacher Assistants from being fired this summer because there is no money left in the school budget to pay them.

The editorial also mentions the improvements in SAT scores and graduation rates but does not mention that those improvements are due to the dedication of the teachers and teacher assistants and that those improvements were attained in spite of the Baldrige model and not because of it. The editorial does not mention the amount of stress that all the assessments and data collection has put on the teachers and students. The editorial does not mention the number of excellent teachers who have left I-SS and have gone to other school systems where the value of the teachers is appreciated and where teachers are freely allowed to use their skills for the benefit of the students.

I say that Dr. Holliday's application for the Kentucky position is just another example of his self promotion and that I am proud to be one of Dr. Holliday's vocal detractors.

I wanted to add that saying that the Baldrige award is an national award gives it way more credit than it deserves. It is true that the Baldrige is a national award in that any school system in the country can apply for the award. But in reality only 11 school systems applied for the award. That means that I-SS was selected the best of those 11 applicants. There are thousands of school systems in the US. If the Baldrige model is such a great educational method, as Dr. Holliday advocates, then why are there so few school systems using it? There are thousands of school systems achieving great successes without the burden and cost of adopting the Baldrige model. I am sure that, with the right leadership, I-SS could do the same.

Second Appointment to View I-SS Records

After communicating with Mr. Neal Ramee, the I-SS attorney whose office is in Raleigh, I was granted an appointment to view some more I-SS records. The appointment was this past Wednesday (7/1/09). The records were in the conference room and I-SS had an observer in the room with me. Actually there were several observers as each one would stay for about a half an hour and then be relieved by the next person. I guess they wanted me to feel like I was in after-school detention. In reality, it did not bother me and I could see some reasoning for it since I did have access to some original school documents.

I just hope that Dr. Holliday doesn’t chastise me at the next School Board, as he did at the last Board meeting. As I mentioned in a previous post, Dr. Holliday accused me of forcing I-SS to spend $5,000.00 in attorney fees and staff time to respond to my requests for public records. Of course he failed to mention that federal law, state law, and even school policy gives me the right to ask for access to school records. This time he will probably state how much it cost to have school staff observe me while I examined the records.

Again, not all the records I requested were made available. They are still collecting some of the records. Also, I did not have time to look at all the records provided so I have already asked Mr. Ramee for another appointment.

The first documents I looked at were the I-SS Organizational charts. I had asked to see the I-SS Administrative Organizational Charts from 2001 to the present. Mr. Ramee had told me that they would be available but the charts for several school years were missing. There was one from May 2001 but the next one was dated March 2005. I don’t know if the ones from 2002, 2003, and 2004 no longer exist or if someone just did not want me to see them. I was hoping to see how quickly the number of Central Office Administrators increased over the years that Dr. Holliday was superintendent. I have asked Mr. Ramee to have I-SS produce all the charts that I requested.

I spent most of my time looking at the invoices from Jim Shipley and Associates (JSA) dated from August 2003 up to June 2005. In that two-year period, I-SS paid JSA $90,739.97 for Baldrige materials and training. Included in that amount was payment to JSA to have Brenda Clark provide training and consulting for a total of 10 days at $1,800.00 per day and a total of 10 more days at $2,050.00 per day. Also included was payment to JSA to have Marty Moore provide training and consulting for a total of 9 days at $1,800.00 per day. This also meant that I-SS had to pay all the travel expenses for Ms. Clark to make 7 trips to Iredell County and for Ms. Clark to make 2 trips to Iredell County. (Of course, I-SS is now paying Ms. Clark $129,900.00 a year and Ms. Moore $105,000.00 a year as employees.) There was also a registration payment of $495.00 to JSA in April 2004 for five I-SS administrators (Holliday, Lane, Hill, Dorton, and Allred) to attend a Baldrige seminar that was held in Florida. Since the travel expenses were not paid to JSA there was no invoice for the cost to send 5 administrators to Florida for the seminar. Even at 2004 prices it was probably no small amount.

While other school systems are spending their funds to make sure students have the supplies and technology needed for learning in the twenty-first century, I-SS spends hundreds of thousands of dollars, or even more, to adapt a twentieth century business model to education.

Viewing Documents

The I-SS administration is up to its same old tricks. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Janey Munday and I had made an appointment with Mrs. Wike, I-SS Financial Officer, to view a number of the School’s financial documents. Janey and I went to the Central Office yesterday (Thursday) to see the documents. The first item we saw was a note that was presumably from Mrs. Wike. The note was to inform us that not all of the requested documents would be available for viewing. The 2007-08 audit report and the invoices from Jim Shipley and Associates were provided. However, only some of the consulting contracts were made available. In the note it was relayed that the staff pulled all the contracts they could during the time they had to work on this task.

The database indexes that I have been requesting were unavailable. We were informed in the note that the index is currently incomplete and that after consulting with 25 other school districts and municipalities the Central Office could find no other entity that has the index completed and available. In addition it was stated that the district is currently working with legal council and NC Dept. of Cultural Resources, Archives and Records division to complete the work necessary to fulfill the legal requirements of the database index. I asked for a copy of the database indexes two months ago. State law and I-SS policy both state that the indexes are to be available to anyone requesting public records. Why is the administration just now starting to work on getting this information together?

In viewing the audit report I could find nothing out of the ordinary. Of course, I am not a CPA. I was hoping to find some indication as to how much I-SS spends on central office administrative costs but it seemed like that information was comingled with all the other budgetary data. I did request that they provide copies of some of the pages so I could look over the information again. The consulting contracts that were available were mostly architectural contracts. The few other contracts seemed relatively minor.

The most interesting information was what Janey found contained in the invoices from Jim Shipley and Associates (JSA). JSA is a big supplier of Baldrige information, supplies, and services. In the last two years I-SS has spent some $20,000.00 with JSA. Some of it was for supplies, but I-SS also arranged for JSA to have Brenda Clark provide consulting services for 2 days at $1000.00 per day and to have Marty Moore provide consulting service for several days at $1800.00 per day. I-SS also paid for their travel expenses. Since that time Brenda Clark and Marty Moore have been hired as I-SS Central Office administrators. Dr. Holliday does like to hire his Baldrige cronies even if he has to create a new administrative position to do so.

Janey and I plan to go back to the Central Office next Thursday to view the documents that were not available yesterday as well as some additional invoices from JSA. I wonder what excuses the administration will have at that time.

This post was written by Paul Klaene.

Committee of the Whole Meeting

I attended the I-SS Committee of the Whole meeting last night. As you might suspect much of the time was spent talking about the budget for next year. The Statesville Record and Landmark has much of the information in today's print edition and posted on-line. There was a lot of bad news but I did get the impression that the Board and Dr. Holliday were sincere in their desire to retain all employees and especially teachers. The biggest concern seemed to be with respect to the teacher assistants. The state is considering no longer funding teacher assistants for the third grade. Of course this would mean that it would be difficult to retain all of the teacher assistants. It would also impact the running of the school buses since many of the teacher assistants are also bus drivers. They did say I-SS might be able to hire some of the fired teacher assistants as part-time bus drivers. I am sure that is not much consolation for those teacher assistants. There was also talk about changing assistant principals from 12 month contracts to 11 or 11.5 month contracts but no one suggested reducing the number of Central Office administrators. In my opinion, and in the opinion of others, I-SS has too many administrators and that I-SS could save some money by eliminating a few of them. Dr. Holliday did mention that if they did away with the Instructional Facilitators, those individuals would go back into the classroom and then I-SS would probably have to fire some non-tenured teachers since the Facilitators are tenured and have seniority. I think I-SS could keep those teachers if they did eliminate a few of those Central Office administrators. Dr. Holliday also stated that the Instructional Facilitator model is funded through Title I, Title II, and IDEA funds. Considering that the current implementation of the Instructional Facilitators is to enforce the Baldrige plan, is that really the proper use of those funds? Speaking of the Baldrige plan, another issue mentioned last night was that the fact that teachers were going to be asked to do more work for less pay. Wouldn't this be a great time to tell teachers that if they wanted to continue doing all the Baldrige paperwork in their classes they could do so, but that it would also be quite acceptable to use a different teaching method in their classrooms.

This post was written by Paul Klaene.