Renewed Vision Meeting

Materials related to last night’s meeting are now available on the I-SS web site. You can find information for each of the system’s key processes as well as issue bins for each. The reports of the principal and teacher surveys as well as the reports of the various advisory meetings are also available. The video of the meeting is not yet available. I want to thank Mr. Johnson for making sure this information was available in a timely manner. You can access the information by clicking on the link below.

Renewed Vision Information

There was a lot of information shared at the meeting but it seemed to be mostly this is what we are doing and don’t you think it’s wonderful. There was some talk of a few changes being made but the bulk of the information was simply a reiteration of the processes that have been in place for some time. Yes, it was mentioned that there would be more flexibility in some of the processes, and yes it was mentioned that changes were made based on input from teachers and others. However those changes were minor changes compared to the feedback given in the principal and teacher surveys as well as in the reports of the various advisory meetings.

There were several initiatives that the principals and teachers said needed major tweaking that did not seem to receive any tweaking. Or, if they were tweaked, they were minor tweaks. Was this a true response to the feedback received from the various groups? I don’t think so. Was it an effort to encourage everyone to be content with the way things are? I think so.

What do you think? Remember, all comments are welcome. Some comments about the meeting have already been given after the previous post.

Missing: Area Advisory Meeting Reports

As I stated in my previous post, the School Board’s selection of Mr. Johnson as superintendent was made before the report of the various area advisory meetings was publicized. Wednesday, I sent Dawn Creason, I-SS Director of Public Relations, an e-mail asking to inspect the final report as well as any intermediate reports of the various Area Advisory Meetings that began on Oct. 1, 2009. I also requested to inspect the reports of any other advisory meetings, including the one with certified personnel, that were held relating to the selection of the new superintendent. I received the following reply.

Mr. Klaene-

I have checked, and the minutes posted online are the reports of the advisory meetings. There were no intermediate reports. Additionally, there have been no meetings with certified personnel relating to the selection of the new superintendent.

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I have read the minutes of the advisory meetings and they are not the reports that were promised. As a matter of fact, each of the minutes includes the following statement.

All information gathered at this and all Area Advisory Meetings will be presented back to the community in the form of a report from Mr. Hultberg and Ms. Masiello.

Additionally, at the last of the area advisory meetings, Mr. Johnson stated that the advisory meeting report would be posted on the I-SS web site within a few days. Why is there no report? Why was no advisory meeting held with the teachers as promised? Why was there no public survey as promised?

As part of his comments at the Board meeting, Dr. Cash said: “we reviewed recommendations made through the district advisory meeting process and the data obtained from formal and informal surveys throughout the education and civic community.” How could they review the recommendations if there was no report? What formal and informal surveys was he referring to? Perhaps the Board members simply talked to their friends, relatives, and close associates.

Now don’t get me wrong, I know that Mr. Johnson is a capable and dedicated man. I certainly think that he will do a good job as superintendent. However, the Board promised that they would use a particular process in the selection of the new superintendent. Yet, in the end, they chose to abruptly stop that process and go behind closed doors to make their decision. This casts a dark cloud over the whole process and even worse; it casts a dark cloud over Mr. Johnson. Once again, the School Board has shown a lack of respect for students, parents, teachers, other I-SS employees, and the citizens of Iredell County.

WIHS Advisory Meeting

I attended the Advisory Meeting at West Iredell High School last night and I must say that I think that this one was much better than the one at Statesville High. The procedure was the same but the presentation was a little clearer. Of course, the presenters have now had the opportunity to go through the process several times and I had gone through it once before.

However, I think the biggest change was in the group of participants. At the first meeting, my wife was probably the only teacher in attendance and there were a significant number of Central Office administrators present. At this meeting that ratio seemed to be reversed. I did not know most of the people in attendance but from the comments of those present there did seem to be a significant number of teachers at this meeting. The comments seemed to be more related to students, teachers, and classrooms.

There were two School Board members in attendance as well. John Rogers was there and he told me that he had been to all of the advisory meetings except one. Charles Kelly was also there. He told me that he had attended a couple of the other Advisory Meetings.

At the end of the meeting Mr. Johnson stated that they hoped to have the reports from all of the meetings posted on the school web site in a few days. I am looking forward to seeing the overall report. Click on the link below to access the I-SS web site.

Iredell-Statesville Schools

NIH Advisory Meeting

The next advisory meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 13^th, at North Iredell High School. The meeting will start at 7:00 p.m. Again, the main purpose of the meeting is to allow students, parents, teachers, and others an opportunity to participate in the selection process for the new superintendent. You may not think that the School Board is truly going to listen the public’s input, but if we don’t speak out that just gives the Board members an excuse to do whatever they want.

If the same process is used at this meeting as was used at the SHS meeting, the participants will first be asked to list the priorities that they wish the new superintendent to address. That is what should be the main concerns for the school system. After that, the participants will be asked to list the character traits, experience, or strengths that the new superintendent should possess.

I have another meeting Tuesday night so I will not be able to attend this advisory meeting. I hope several readers of this blog will attend the meeting and then leave some comments so we can get a report of the main emphasis of this meeting.

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.