Last week, we reported that City Schools of Decatur board member John Ahmann was openly publicizing to the community that he was trying to get the bell schedule, which he had voted against at the last meeting, back on the agenda for June.
In this note to the community, Ahmann proposed a new schedule with later start-times at the middle school and high school and an earlier start for the 4/5 Academy. He also disputed the costs that the Superintendent projected for his schedule.
Well, the June agenda is now online and Ahmann’s reconsideration of the bell schedule is not included. This led to a update by a parent – posted on the CSD Parents message board – entitled “Board of Education Chair and Superintendent Ignore Ahmann’s Requests”. A snippet…
…[John] received NO REPLY from either Marc Wisniewski or Phyllis Edwards to his personal email requests to each of them to have his items placed on the agenda.
…John’s only recourse now is to propose to amend the agenda at the Board meeting, which he said is his intention. He will need a second from another Board member, and then a majority of the Board to agree that his items should be discussed.
This note was forwarded to me many times over the last couple days. I followed up and received this reply from School Board Chair Marc Wisniewski that he sent to another resident recently, detailing his position on this matter. Here it is in full…
I hope you know that I have no intention to ‘squelch discourse’ nor to not do what would be good for students. The bell schedule was revisited over 3 successive months – it was time to make a decision. We had heard many pros and cons from many parents. There was a need to begin the planning and organizing process for next year. So last month we voted and reached a decision that took into account the issues on both the bell schedule and the bus contract. We made a decision by a 3 to 1 vote on each (Bernadette was not in attendance). Now the sole person in the minority is seeing to bring the issues up again – there is a proper process for that but it is NOT to have an action item placed on the agenda by the chair or the superintendent. And, despite claims otherwise, there were not significant facts not already on the table and understood.
Importantly, for those that were at the meeting and who chose to listen they heard me say that I am open to a REAL discussion of truly changing the start time in a meaningful way as the studies suggest. That is not a 30 minute one way or a 15 minute the other way tweak, but rather a change to something like a 9:30 or 10 start time. For THAT to happen – in a responsible, orderly and reasonable manner – there needs to be a broad discussion in the community so that the impact of a late release time (i.e. on after school activities from jobs and extracurricular to study halls and family coordination) can be truly understood and vetted. Sadly the real reason for not putting the requested items on the agenda had to do with board ethics and proper parliamentary procedures. But that isn’t very exciting and doesn’t paint me or others in a bad light. Its boring reality. In fact both items John requested REQUIRE the procedure that is now to be followed – a motion which must be seconded by a person who voted in the majority on the previous decision and then a majority to vote in favor of discussing the issue. This wasn’t discretionary on my (or Dr. Edwards’) part. It is the way Roberts Rules of Order requires. And that’s not a “weaseling out” on my part, but instead my taking the responsibility for there to not be a board environment whereby every decision taken has no meaning and can be reversed over and over. THAT would wreak havoc on the governance and operations of the schools. It is truly a shame that this is all being exaggerated and distorted rather then having the issues truly examined and weighed. But I trust that the vast majority of people don’t assume ill intent of the board, and understand that we are making decisions and operating in a fair and reasonable manner. One can assume otherwise but I would wonder why.
Thankless as it is, someone’s gotta be the Dad. 🙂
Thanks Marc !
Hmm.
RE facts not on the table: It was reported at the Board meeting with the relevant vote that the DHS SLT was ok with the bell schedule. The Chair of the SLT reports otherwise. It makes one doubt the rest of the evidence.
RE 9:30 AM discussion: Many of the concerns about the Fifth Avenue and DHS bell schedules are not about starting as late as possible. There’s concerns about DHS getting out early and Fifth Avenue starting late.
Re “heard from many parents pro and con”: I wish something more objective and quantitable could have been done. I’ve heard nothing but complaints about the schedule. Board members report otherwise. Means nothing. A survey would yield data that could support one position or another and get us beyond the “he said”, “she said” level.
Finally, I still cannot fathom the rationalization for NOT switching the Fifth Avenue and DHS schedules. Even the sports schedule doesn’t totally make sense. 8th graders are eligible for JV teams but they won’t be out of school until 45 minutes after the high school. Cross-country and other teams that practice outside would prefer a later, cooler time for practice when there’s moree natural shade. There must be a strong pressure for this particular schedule but it sure isn’t articulated well.
I am sure Mr. Wisniewski is doing what he believes to be in the best interest of the school district. Not all of us understand the minutia of parliamentary procedure. And I can certainly understand that the bell schedule was tabled once in April, voted upon in May, and now he wants to move on. I doubt that the distortion was intentional, but that is 2 months not 3. I am glad that there is a process by which the issue can be revisited. And I hope a BoE member will step up to do so. The community is alert, engaged, and watching.
As to having a “real” discussion… The tail which originally wagged the dog on this issue was the 5th Avenue transportation plan. We’ve known for well over a year that the change was coming. Where was the community engagement and _real_ discussion before the vote on the issue? I can’t understand the insistence on a need for a future discussion which may never take place, while voting on an issue for which we’ve had a year to prepare without the “real” discussions the community needed.
I would like to think that when the compounded errors in the data and misrepresentations of community engagement and recommendations come to light, that our BoE members would step up, dig into the details, and provide oversight. I would like to think that Mr. Wisniewski has no other agenda than the best interests of our students.
There was only one option on the table last month. And that singular option did not reflect the research or community input. Even though the request was made in April, no effort was put forth in the intervening month to survey students, parents, or teachers that gave a clear quantifiable indication of which option the community preferred. The numbers given to explain the costs of buses didn’t add up. The administration’s busing expert insisted additional buses would add significant additional miles, even if the exact same routes were run. -And couldn’t answer at what distance transportation is mandated by the state.
When a board member asked if the DHS School Leadership Team had a recommendation, she was misinformed that they had accepted the rationale for the early start time proposal. When in fact, the DHS SLT had voted a prior recommendation against it. When those same members had listened to the early start time proposal just days before the BoE meeting, and had responded by asking that accommodations be made for the same or later start time.
The rational I heard Mr. Wisniewski’s give for going with the early start time proposal was lower costs and a feeling that 30 minutes earlier vs. 15 minutes later wouldn’t make a significant difference. -Despite the fact that he had listened the prior month to 3 teachers explain how the research shows that shifting start times in increments as little as 15 minutes has a quantifiable and significant affect on academic performance. Mr. Ahmann has made a well reasoned proposal to save money on buses using a lease purchase agreement which would more than offset the costs of the DHS start time that the community, the research, and our educators support.
I hope Mr. Wisniewski and his peers will welcome the chance to revisit this issue. I hope they will listen to the research, their educators who cared enough to buck the party line, the students, the parents, and the community they represent.
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/csd_dhs_start_time/
I just went to this petition site and learned a lot. Some of CSD’s biggest supporters have signed the petition. And some of the concerns are ones I never thought of. I urge all DM readers interested in this topic to look at the petition signer comments–these are genuine parent comments, not third-hand hearsay. In a way, this petition is doing some of the data gathering that CSD could have done easily several months ago when it first considered a specific bell schedule. Unfortunately, the data missing is the thoughts of the folks who support the approved bell schedule.
Sounds like a sore loser to me.
Wow… 154 signatures already.
Make that 159 signatures a few hours later.
I believe we will eventually get to a bell schedule that makes sense. However, we won’t really know the impact of the new start times and traffic patterns resulting from the 5th Avenue opening until after we try something and actually measure the results.
Marc is right about following proper procedure – without it every board decision can be unwound. Lets try the bell schedule that was approved and ask the board to ensure we have mechanisms in place to objectively monitor the outcome. Maybe we can ask the board to setup a committee of parents and administrators tasked with oversight and have them make a recommendation next february.
Your post is reasonable and I would probably agree with it if this was the first time in a long time that the community has had to ask AFTER the fact to please be allowed to give more systematic input. But folks have been asking for a committee or survey from the first moment that they heard about the bell schedule. And where is the comprehensive evaluation of the calendar impact that was promised? One question on a general school satisfaction survey is not an evaluation. And I know folks on the calendar committee and a focus group that has taken place and they report that the groups are totally orchestrated and don’t allow for systematic feedback. SLTs report that they still struggle with having real input. A perfect input is that the DHS SLT’s input into the bell schedule issue was never considered by the Board and, in fact, was misconveyed to them.
So we are still operating on hearsay and “he said, she said” and our anecdotes based on our faulty, biased memories in a day and age when it is extremely easy to get feedback in a systematic manner. Not research level–given that not everyone is hooked up to the web and/or checks it or responds–but a lot better than the high schoolish “I got a call from….” When is CSD going to remember to get parent/community input BEFORE they make a decision that folks are going to want to have input into? Why are they always in reactive vs. proactive mode?
No matter what happens, there’s a groundswell for more dialogue and input from the community. On principle, our school system expresses commitment to parent and community involvement through its system charter, the International Baccalaureate Program, and its small, neighborhood-feel schools. But in operation, CSD staff are still struggling with shifting from the classic, hierarchical, we’re-the-experts, educational model that most of them trained and got experience in.
I hope you’re right. But we’ve been here many times before. All too frequently the community only becomes aware of issues which are introduced as “final decision” already made. Many folks sit on the side lines either because they don’t think their voices will be heard or matter. We very rarely revisit issues. It isn’t a perfect world. It will never happen that all sides and perspectives will be perfectly represented and the facts and data will be presented without flaw. But we can and should do better. Every time the board votes on these issues where stakeholder input is clearly tacked on as an afterthought… it reinforces the pattern that this the way things are and should be done.
Mr. Wisniewski is arguably incorrect in his interpretation of parliamentary procedure. Not being an expert, I consulted a friend to ask one. If Mr. Ahmann were asking to return to the previous bell schedule or to reconsider the motion which passed, then Mr. Wisniewski’s interpretation of parliamentary procedure would be correct. But if Mr. Ahmann’s proposals are for a new bell schedule or action item which has not been voted upon, then the chair or the superintendent are allowed to add those action items to the agenda.
A “real” future discussion about a 9:30a start time is a non-starter idea which is deflection plain and simple.
When community and board members are asking reasonable questions and getting no answers or answers which are obviously skewed or flawed… Then we have a potential long term crisis brewing. As a community member, we are vocal and passionate about our schools because they are great schools. -Not because we just don’t understand or just don’t get it. We can do so much better. And I hope our board will avoid the usual response of circling the wagons, bunkering down, and adopting an us vs. “those people who just don’t get it” response.
Whether it’s true or not, there is an appearance that the Board is NOT, “making decisions and operating in a fair and reasonable manner,” which makes ME wonder “why?” I personally care much less about 30 minutes here or 15 minutes there, than the communications failures and process that failed to adequately engage the community.
The administration was hired and the BOE elected to run the school system. Why do you insist on micromanaging them?
And in Goebel’s specific case, he ran against the Board Chair and lost the election with the now Chair getting 56% of the vote.
Carpe Diem has an interesting editorial regarding the bus issue which includes information that the superintendent met with seniors regarding the bell issue. Does anyone know the feedback that the students gave?
If you are interested in reading some student comments, check out the Facebook page “Tell Decatur to not start school at 8:00am”
Wow. So CSD isn’t listening to the students either. There’s a lesson for them. Think, discover, create, and problem solve as per the International Baccalaureate curriculum….unless we disagree with you in which case it doesn’t matter. I’ll bet if the students had agreed with the bell schedule, the news would be everywhere, on Decatur EdTV, this blog, Superintendent’s letter to the Board etc. I’m beginning to doubt even the anecdotal phone call data. For every supportive call quoted, how many calls were against?
I agree that the bigger issue is how changes are handled in a supposed system charter than exactly how bad or good those changes are. Where’s the data, the process, the input, the feedback, the consensus building?
Aren’t listening to which students? Are they all in lock step? Perhaps some of them would like to finish the school day at a reasonable time so they can commit to other activities, jobs, family responsibilities, etc. 30 minutes is NOT a dramatic schedule change. Perhaps your household needs to learn a little flexibility in order to adapt.
I want to leave to the side the procedural issues of whether Marc Wisniewski or Phyllis Edwards were allowed to add the item to the June meeting agenda. I also think we’re better off assuming that everybody involved in the discussion (including every member of the board members plus the superintendent) is working in good faith for what they think is best for the children of Decatur. Name-calling is just going to get people defensive.
Instead, I’d like to concentrate on the merits of John Ahmann’s proposal, responding to a few of Marc Wisniewski’s points.
(1) I disagree that a 45 minute difference in DHS start time is trivial (as implied by “I am open to a REAL discussion of truly changing the start time in a meaningful way [e.g., to 9:30] as the studies suggest.”) See the comment above: teenagers learn better with a later schedule, and 45 minutes makes a difference.
(2) If intensive study (with “broad discussion in the community”) is needed before making major changes to the schedule, this would seem to tell in favor of Ahmann’s proposed bell schedule, which sticks much closer to status quo for the start times of various schools than the bell schedule passed in the last BOE meeting.
(3) While I understand the desire to move past this issue after several meetings, this is an important issue. Furthermore, John Ahmann isn’t simply asking for a redo on a decision he disagreed with. Instead, he looked at the major objection to having DHS start later–that doing so would cost a lot of extra money–and has now come up with a proposal that he believes addresses this objection. This new information (that there seems to be a way of accommodating later DHS start times without costing the district money) seems to me legitimate reason to look anew at the bell schedule.
(4) Unfortunately, no systematic process has been in place for gauging community opinion and soliciting their input. But judging from things like the postings on this blog, the recommendations of the DHS SLT, the petition, and the facebook page, most students and parents strongly favor the later DHS start time. So for the board not even to bring up for consideration John Ahmann’s proposal at the meeting would seem dismissive of our concerns. If it turns out that there is a problem with it, or that his ideas can’t be implemented at this date, or there is some other reason board members prefer to stick to the schedule approved at the previous meeting, OK. But those need to be laid out. I myself haven’t heard a compelling case made for needing to start DHS at 8:00, and the rationales given have been shifting from this to that in a confusing way.
10:00 start time? That’s a good one!
I am quite frustrated by this debate because at the heart of it we seem to not trust our elected officials and school administrators.
Unless we feel they are truly incompetent and incapable of making decisions why do we continue to recycle this issue?
Why not at least table it until next year and allow time for more data to be gathered and verified?
There are many variables at play in this decision – and we the “partially informed” public do not have insights into everything that needs to be considered.
Also, I think it is quite “lame” for Mr. Ahmann to reopen this issue after the board has already voted. There was ample time for him to make his case and try to influence his colleagues before the vote, and if he was in the process of gathering data, to ask for more time. The board voted. He was on the losing side. It happens. Time to move on.
Is Mr. Ahmann up for a new term soon? Does he need an issue to make a stand on to excite the voters? Does he not like to lose? Seems fishy to me.
I have not heard back from Dr. Edwards or a single school board member either. They all received a variation of this email, which I also posted here last week. Hiding a decision this big behind “procedure” and “Roberts Rules of Order” is not to the benefit of our children. Bad decisions can be reversed.
I am glad John Ahman has requested that the bell schedule be brought back onto the agenda. I have rising 3rd and 5th graders and am very unhappy about the decision that was made.
I second everything Mr. Ahman brought up in his email (as reported by Decatur Metro) in making that request. Please consider scenarios where this late start time will encourage the creation of 4th or 5th grade latchkey children. He or she could now be responsible for getting themselves to school without oversight of the single parent in the household who had to go to work at 7:30 – 8:00. The DFACS guidelines say, based on maturity, a child between the ages of 9 – 12 can be left home alone for brief periods of time. Surely this isn’t what the board intended. Which children will start to slip through the cracks? This can also be the case for two-parent families with multiple kids, depending on their schedules. Or, perhaps the parent will put the kid on the bus, which might not have been necessary without this drastic change. And isn’t that what we’re trying to discourage?
Abruptly changing the start time for my fifth grader’s school by almost an hour is a major scheduling change. Bus transportation is not the only concern to be addressed in regards to this topic.
I am also very upset by the way this was handled and the process for informing affected parents. I did not learn about this until the week after school reading Glennwood’s last newsletter. However the board handles publicizing important decisions, this proposed action should have been backed up by notifying affected parents. I see that high school parents were sent a letter about that proposed change. Was this done for rising fourth and fifth graders, who seem to have the most drastic change?
Why wasn’t this action tabled for further consideration? Why the rush to vote? Why doesn’t the CSD website list this as a hot topic?
The bicycle plan I had developed for my kids next year will not work, since the start times are so different. Guess I better check those bus routes…
I hope the school board will put this back on the agenda and give the decision the time and thoughtful consideration it deserves, before households are turned upside down with a rapid and dramatic schedule change.