Last week’s meeting was delayed because too many board members were out of town. Here are some of the items on this week’s agenda:
We’ll hear a report about the annual staff climate survey. More information here. (Editorial comment: Does this look like an objective report to you, or like an advertisement?)
We’ll hear a report about lead testing in the district’s school. More information here.
We’ll hear the quarterly financial report.
We’ll once again consider a proposal to create two new classrooms in the existing Penn Elementary School building. I voted against this proposal at our last board meeting, for the reasons I described in a comment on this post. It’s not yet clear to me whether the administration is still proposing to change the listed capacity of Penn if this proposal is adopted.
All that and more! The full agenda is here. Feel free to chime in with a comment about anything that catches your attention.
23 comments:
I am so relieved to read that the district staff is Happy! Happy! Happy! Gosh, that is just great.
In skimming the other agenda items, I noticed the Open Enrollment info is now being made 100% public. Fine for the board agreeing to allow students into the district, but the item about
the board voting to allow a child to attend Clear Creek Amana is a joke. The sending district does not have authority to prevent a child from leaving. Only the receiving district has a say, based on their space available, per state regs.
If we are going to be 100% transparent about Open Enrollment, let's go all the way and acknowledge the fact that 500 ICCSD children Open Enrolled OUT last school year, with only 82 children Open Enrolled INTO the district. With all the talk about overbuilding seats in the bond, no one is addressing the silent hemorrhaging of hundreds of students who are leaving and will not return. The taxpaper money is going with them, so don't be fooled by counting roof tops in IC to estimate the amount of potential tax monies available to pay for ICCSD.
500 families voted last year to give their money to other districts that meet their child's needs better than ICCSD. It will be 501 starting this school year because our family has used the existing state laws to Open Enroll our beloved child in a neighboring district that does not use Seclusion Boxes on children and has an excellent staff, student and parent climate.
We are truly lucky.
The Executive Summary and Highlight advertisements are very telling - looks like they cherry picked positive information possible and assembled it to make things look just great. The district leadership and ESC sections of the survey do not look positive to me and they appear to be missing from the key insight and highlights reports. I am not a statistician, but is 38% response rate good? To me that seems like a very low number responding to the survey. If I were ICCSD staff I would be very nervous responding negatively to this survey in the current environment. Is there a way the survey could be administered more anonymously to get a higher response rate and more genuine responses? I mean, I know administration just wants a facade that everything is awesome and everyone is so happy.
Just look at those trend lines up, up, up - simply amazing. High fives all around. Excellent job Murley - I think it may be time for another raise - you have earned it!
Is what happened with the increase in the cost of Lincoln's upgrades going to be a trend that we see with many of the FMP projects? Also, where will the additional money be coming from to fund their project? Should schools at the end of the FMP be concerned that their school projects may not be funded if they are unable to reduce the costs for Lincoln's projects?
My experience in looking at this administration/school board the last ten years is that they are big on instituting change first and managing details second. Looking beyond the first step isn't their strength. The recent situations with Penn and Lincoln are par for the course. You do not want Murley and his circus setting up tent in the ICCSD under the banner of a $191 million GO Bond. It will be one example after the next of poor planning and we will be much worse off in 5-10 years.
Wait, this is terrible! Fewer than 40% of staff were willing to fill this thing out? Man, you know you've got problems when that's the case -- it means people are apathetic at best; at worst they aren't happy but are afraid to say so, afraid of being identified.
Also, it looks lik there was a jump in participation two years ago, and now it's fallen off again.
What percentage of teachers...well, I guess we can figure that out. 73% were teachers, 38% of employees total filled it out.
Recently in a few board doc items I have noticed correspondence to Mr. Murley that refer to "Dr." Murley. Has Mr. Murley finally earned his PhD as promised years ago when he was hired or is he simply misrepresenting himself? As I understand it Mr. Murley will get an addition to his $alary as soon as he earns his PhD, so I am sure we would have heard if this was the case. I think he should get a rolling deduction to his salary every year that passes that he doesn't have his PhD, maybe then he would be more motivated.
http://www.boarddocs.com/ia/iccsd/Board.nsf/files/APTSJK7276F7/$file/OCR%20Settlement%20Agreement%20717.pdf
Will they be discussing funding for the Lincoln project where the design estimate was significantly over budget in this weeks board meeting? I don't see it on the agenda. I am very concerned that this is setting up a reason to not do the Lincoln renovations and eventually close Lincoln. I believe that this project is scheduled to be one of the first on the bond and they have had plenty of time to figure out what the renovations/additions would be and what the cost would be. I find it suspicious that this comes up weeks before the bond vote.
Supt. Steve Murley does NOT have his Ph.D. I have that on good authority from Steve Murley himself in an email to school board president Chris Lynch, who responded to my question for a status update on Murley's progress toward his Ph.D. Anyone who addresses Supt. Murley as Dr. Murley is mistaken.
If this GO Bond passes $330 million will have come into the district in the last ten years. The other two sources are PPEL and SAVE. That's a massive injection of funds into the district in a short period of time.
It is interesting to look at where that money is going per HS. Surprisingly the area of the district that is growing the most rapidly and building a new HS is not receiving the most money. That distinction goes to City High by about $17 million. Not only does City High get the most funds it also has most of its projects completed well ahead of both Liberty and West High.
Another interesting surprise is the difference in money going to City compared to West. Since neither is getting a new $85 million HS I expected it to be fairly close, but it wasn't. City is receiving over twice as much money; $140 million to City while just $67 million is going to West. And again City is getting their projects started and finished well ahead of West High.
Somehow we are surprised that the "side" of the district with the oldest facilities are in need of the most upgrades and repair? How many 100+ year old elementary schools feed into either West or NL? Whats the average age of the facilities for West vs NL vs City? Now that we have completed that exercise perhaps we can acknowledge that the bond actually addresses the many needs across our ONE district.
There's also this:
http://www.thegazette.com/2012/10/27/iowa-city-school-district-spends-more-on-west-side
But hey, whos counting .....
AY2016/FY2018 Property Valuations from the Iowa Department of Management.
Non-TIFF:
$5,319,317,181 Iowa City
$1,670,561,443 Coralville
$1,381,267,535 North Liberty
$ 127,598,012 University Heights
$ 71,053,693 Hills
TIFF:
$ 80,559,947 Iowa City
$713,294,571 Coralville
$142,017,314 North Liberty
$ 1,674,606 University Heights
*These are before rollback and also include some areas in CCA school district.
It’s pretty clear that the bulk of the money for the bond will be coming from Iowa City. It’s also pretty clear that Coralville and North Liberty (more so than Iowa City) are short changing the district with their abuse of TIFF.
Question to previous commenter: aren't debt service levies, such as a school bond, exempt from TIF? If so your analysis would be both incorrect and irrelevant. Add to the problem is that a large % of the CV and NL TIF is not in the ICCSD.
Using the 2002-2012 funding dollars from the above linked Gazette article you could add $33 million to City, $33 million to West and $33 million to Liberty (assuming that west side $66 million was split down the middle). So from a 20 year perspective City High has maintained a major funding advantage over West and surprisingly still more than a rapidly growing area of the district in North Liberty where a new $85 million high school has just been built.
City is having a good run the last two decades. It will be quite the moment when they cap it off with that baseball field at the corner of Court and N 1st. You know, where Hoover Elementary once stood.
Anon 9:31 - I wasn’t aware that revenues from debts levies are exempt from TIF, but according to a quick search, that does appear to be the case. Good to know. Thanks for pointing that out.
So the picture looks a little more like this:
$5,399,877,128 Iowa City
$2,383,856,014 *Coralville
$1,523,284,849 *North Liberty
$ 129,272,618 University Heights
$ 71,053,693 Hills
*Some of these valuations are in CCA School District
It is still pretty clear that the bulk of the money for the bond will be coming from Iowa City.
I can’t resist chiming in here. I don’t think it makes any sense at all to talk about whether the available facilities money is being divided up equally among three (or four, or ten) geographic parts of the district. What should matter is where the needs are. There are lots of perfectly good arguments to be made about whether the district is unfairly prioritizing some needs over others. But for me it would never be about just taking the money and dividing it by three.
I also can’t agree that the relative tax contributions of different cities should drive where the money gets spent. If we start going down that road, should elementary schools in wealthier neighborhoods get more funding than those in poorer areas? After all, they pay a bigger share of the taxes! Again, what should matter is where the needs are.
Agree entirely with Chris.
More's been spent on City? I don't care, and I've got a kid at West. In no way is West a suffering heap of a school. It's a little warm in spots, yes. I'll go one better: I don't care if City has *twice* as many AP courses and sports teams as West. My reaction: nice that that's available for kids around here, hope their parents aren't grinding them into the pavement with terrors about grades and wins, homework and practice.
As for IC's paying disproportionately for the district: uh, yes, this is where the bulk of the people and money are.
Try not being selfish and jealous for about ten minutes. Just give it a shot.
First of all Iowa City includes a lot of areas and homes that are West High zoned. What a silly way to oversimplify that analysis.
Second, you have to look at the "20 year" big picture to get perspective. Seeing that City High is getting more funding and sooner over a two decade long period is telling. Drill down a bit and you start to see projects for City High that don't make much sense. For instance, Southeast is going to be getting it's second gym and wrestling room renovations with the GO Bond? Sure, the first project at Southeast made sense but another one? ahead of Northwest? Without looking at the big picture it become a lot harder to answer the question, "Is this necessary spending?"
I don't agree with a many things concerning the bond. It doesn't prioritize needs and many projects are unnecessary at this time. The bond undeniably favors certain parts of the district to unnaturally push growth and is very favorable to certain known developers, which is why they have openly supported the pro bond group with major financial support. I strongly dislike current administration with their shady tactics and how they have politicized the bond and polarized our district. The board majority is in this same category of dislike. I personally believe that there are underlying plans to shut down Hills and possibly Lincoln if this bond passes. I disagree with shutting down any existing schools and I think old Hoover should stay open as well, but that doesn't fit in with the FMP and bond plans. Having said all of this and after much thought, it is unfortunate but I think that I will still vote YES for the bond due to my own selfish reasons. My kids currently go to a school that is in desperate need of renovation and will eventually be going to Liberty which will need the expansion and athletic facilities. North Liberty schools have been over crowded and out of focus for years and projects in the bond address these needs. I have to say that this administration and board majority is very good at marketing and politics. They are doing an exquisite job pimping this bond and holding facility needs ranson, essentially forcing people to vote for this bond (or else who knows what may happen scare tactics). I don't mind paying the high price for my piece of the pie, but I just wish we could get better leadership that works with integrity rather than dishonesty. The best case scenario would be the bond passes and we get new board members with integrity that put students interests first. We get a new superintendent that doesn't just think about how he looks and how much money he can squeeze out of us. New board and new supe can re-prioritize the bond projects and FMP to address immediate needs.
Frank, I wish you reconsider. A new board could keep the same superintendant and delete all funding for your favorite school. IMHO, until we know what is going to be built we are doing a great disservice to our kids? Why? Because dividing up the pot of money generated by the bond is going to be based on political influence and not the needs of our kids. And because the needs of our kids 15 years down the road are going to be unmet because we have failed to retain enough of the bond money for their needs.
I agree with Anon 11:06.
Frank, if you, for "selfish reasons", vote for the bond, then you've just been had. That is exactly how they want you to think. The bond has a little something for everyone and they can delete/add/modify the list at will. What makes you think "your piece of the pie" will be there once it passes? It is pretty obvious that the bond favors one side of the town over the other. Once it passes, there will be nothing to stop them from removing or shrinking the Liberty projects. Let's vote NO and get the firm commitment to specific projects. If we have to vote for one project at a time, so be it. For the avoidance of the disastrous $200m bond, I don't mind voting every month, or even every week. Time well spent.
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