Meeting with Brady Johnson and Pam Schiffman

This past Thursday I went to the Central Office to inspect some school records that were ready for me to view. Mr. Johnson walked out into the hall to greet me and took me back to Dawn Creason’s office to get the documents that were ready to inspect and to show me the ones they were still compiling. One set of documents that were finally compiled was the database indexes that I had requested months ago.

Brady invited me into his office and said that he wanted Pam Schiffman to describe what was included in the indexes. Pam said that as far as they knew, I-SS was the first school system to complete the indexes as required by NC law. Brady said it was an obscure part of the Public Records law and that most institutions probably don’t know about it. As a side note, I did not have any problems noticing it when I read the NC Public Records Law that is available one of the State’s web sites.

The indexes show the files and fields included in the School’s database and state whether or not the information is available to the public. As you might suspect some of the databases have information about students and some have information about employees. Some of the databases that the system uses are owned and maintained by the State. Pam told me that if I wanted to see the indexes for those databases, I would have to request that information from the NC Department of Instruction.

Some time ago, Brady had informed me that he would be willing to have Pam explain the formula that I-SS had developed to rank the NC school systems. Since Pam was already meeting with us I asked if she could ahead and explain the formula, which she did. She showed me the categories that she uses to produce the ranking and how she puts them together to determine the final ranking. I must say that I now feel more confident about the process even though I-SS determines what goes into the formula and the weighting for each category. Pam said that she is currently in the process of compiling a ranking based on the latest test scores and that she will share the ranking with me when it is completed. I will post that information when I receive it and will explain more about the formula at that time.

While I was in Brady’s office he showed me a number of binders of documents that Dr. Holliday had left behind. Brady said that any time I wanted to look through them, I could make an appointment to do so. He said that he wants to assure everyone that he believes in complete transparency and that all school documents are available for inspection. Of course that would not apply to confidential information. Brady also asked me what I-SS could do to improve the transparency of the system and I said that one way would be to place more information on the I-SS web site. As an example, I recommended that all documents that are presented to the School Board before and at their meetings should be made available on the web site.

As we were talking, Brady mentioned that he did plan to let teachers take the survey that was presented to the principals just before school started. This is the survey that lists various school procedures and allows the person taking the survey to indicate whether that procedure was working and should be retained as is, or useful but in need of improvement (tweaking), or not useful and should be abandoned. Brady said that the survey would be administered sometime around the beginning of November. He also told me that Larry Rogers, SHS Principal, had taken it upon himself to administer the survey to his faculty. Brady shared the results of two items on that survey. One was the item relating to the IFs. Of the SHS faculty, 11% said to keep it as is, 39% said to abandon it, and the greatest percent said to keep it but to tweak it. The other item was the one relating to PDSAs. I do not remember the breakdown for that one but the largest percentage of the SHS teachers said to abandon it.

At the community meeting, Brady had said that he planned to meet with the IFs and talk to them about what he thought their role should be. This past Thursday, Brady told me that he will be having that meeting with the IFs on this coming Thursday. He said that one of the things he was going to tell them was that with the budget the way it is, come this spring principals may have to decide just how important is it to have an IF and whether that money is needed to retain a teacher or some other staff person.

Brady also said that he wanted to again reassure everyone that he is willing to meet with anybody and to listen to his or her concerns. He said that he has heard that some individuals are still afraid to come forward and speak to him. Brady said that he does not want it to be that way. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I went to the Central Office expecting to just inspect some school records. But, I spent most of my time in Brady’s office talking to him and to Pam Schiffman. I think that this is indeed a true example of how willing Brady is to meet with individuals.

Want to Help?

A number of people have asked how they could help bring some sensibility and fiscal responsibility back to the administration of the Iredell-Statesville Schools. I will list some here, if you can think of others please leave a comment and share your ideas.

• Spread the word. Tell your friends, relatives, and neighbors about our efforts.
• Tell every teacher and teacher assistant you know that we support their efforts and will do everything possible to improve the quality of the schools.
• Attend the Concerned Citizen's School Advisory Committee meeting on Tuesday, July 7th, from 7:00 p.m. until 8:45 p.m. in Meeting Room A at the Iredell County Library.
• Attend the I-SS Board Committee of the Whole meeting on Monday, July 6th, at 5:00 p.m. at the ADR Education Center on Garfield Street. This is the meeting where most of the actual business of the Board is conducted. Also, this meeting is held in a former classroom, therefore our group would be very noticeable. The public is not allowed to speak at this meeting but our presence will speak for us.
• Attend the regular Board Meeting on Monday, July 13th, at 6:00 p.m. in the meeting room on the second floor of the Iredell County Government Center. And please consider speaking during the public comment segment of the meeting. If you are going to speak make sure that you sign-up before the meeting on the sign-up sheet that is outside the meeting room. You only get three minutes to speak so take some time before the meeting to think of what you want to say. The Board policy is that they do not respond to any comments during the meeting, and I have learned that they do not like to respond at all, but perhaps if we get enough people to comment the Board will feel required to respond.
• Write a letter to the editor of the Statesville Record and Landmark.
• Contact the investigative news team at one of the local TV stations.
• If you have children who attend I-SS, talk to them about their experiences in and out of the classroom. When school starts back up, talk to their teacher and find out what extra work the teachers are being required to do and how that is effecting their classroom teaching.
• Do everything possible to make sure that the I-SS administration is made to act with accountability and complete transparency.
• If you know of something that I-SS is not doing correctly, then consider filing a formal complaint. You can do that on-line using the I-SS web site using the link below, or you can pick up a complaint form at Tuesday's meeting.

Online Complaint Management System

Again, these are just few suggestions and, of course, it needs to be a group effort if we are going to make a difference. So, do consider being an active participant. One last thought, I think we need to have some way of identifying the members of the group when we attend school meetings. Perhaps we could wear an arm band of a particular color. Any suggestions?