Mixed Emotions

Today was a day full of emotions. This morning I was able to wish our high school gymnastics team good luck as they headed off to Rockford to compete in the state finals. The team is the two time defending state champion. They were happy and full of life. Their parents and others beamed with pride. Their coach was smiling.

An hour later I was in my office saying good bye to one of our Central Office administrators. Our district restructuring plan called for us to lay off two Central Office administrators. Today was the day. It was hard to say good bye.

Such is life right now in school districts across Michigan. The events of school go on, yet there are painful and necessary discussions and decisions going on about the future of every district. Grand Ledge is doing its part. We are making painful choices to balance our budget. Yet we are also working hard to make sure that our students have opportunities.

It was a day of mixed emotions. There will be many more just like this one in the days ahead.

Ten Year Olds and Dreams

There was an article in the Seattle Times on Wednesday, February 24th, that talked about the United States Nordic Combined Olympic team. The United States had never won an Olympic medal in a Nordic Combined event. Until this year.

This year, the United States won one individual medal and one team medal. The article talked about the effort of the US team and their excitement at winning this medal. It spoke of how long these athletes had been working to get to this point and their satisfaction and joy on reaching their goal.

What struck me most about the article however, was the last sentence. It read, "And only a fool would bet against a 10-year-old with a dream."

This captures our goal in Grand Ledge. I want our school district to do two things. One, I want us to help 10-year-olds learn to dream. I want us to help every student in our district learn to dream, to hope, to have a vision for what they passionately care about. Then I want us - the teachers, administrators, and staff who work here - to be able to give them the skills, the passion, and the heart they need to succeed.

The vision for our district is to be among the best schools in the nation. One way to do that is to make sure we help students dream about the future and then prepare them to achieve those dreams.

Adapting to our environment allows us to grow

Wired Magazine has an interesting article on California redwoods. The giant redwoods have developed the ability to absorb as much as 40% of their water directly from the fog that is a constant in the part of California that they grow in. Without this ability to absorb water from the fog these trees could never grow so tall. If they relied on their roots only, they would be much smaller trees. The water from the roots could never get up to the heights that these trees grow.

To me this is a great example of how we can use the resources around us to do great things. These trees grow to great heights because they use their resources.

Our district has to continue learning how to use its resources to grow to great heights. It is possible in the difficult environment that we find ourselves to continue to adapt and grow. That is our challenge and my goal.

Our School Should Be A High Reliability Organization

I recently attended a workshop on "high reliability organizations" or HROs. The workshop focused on whether or not we can and should expect schools to be high reliability organizations. An HRO is an organization that does not tolerate failure. It is an organization that operates under high-risk conditions and makes the effort necessary to avoid failure in that environment.

I think the HRO is an excellent model for schools. When we fail in our system it is catastrophic! If we fail then we let our students, our parents, our community down. We cannot afford to be an organization that tolerates failure. In that respect we have to be a high reliability organization. We have to create a system that will prevent failures.

As I contemplate moving forward in our district I want us to become that high reliability organization. We have to have a preoccupation with failure. When failure occurs we have to analyze and examine the causes and not be content with simply interpretations. We have to cultivate a culture that is resilient so that setbacks will not become permanent. Finally we have to cultivate expertise in teaching and learning so that know what works and we can find solutions when problems present themselves.

This will require that we use data better, that we understand how to help students, and that we intervene early rather than late. My goal is to help our district become that high reliability organization so that we can reassure every parent that our schools will help their son or daughter succeed.

Warning: Winter Ahead

As I left the high school gym last night a very light film of ice had developed on the sidewalk and cars. After I arrived home I check the National Weather Service to see what the forecast was for the rest of the night. The National Weather Service said that freezing rain was on tap for the evening. I went to bed early expecting an early morning phone call letting me know that conditions were dangerous and we should delay or close school. Yet the phone call never came.

Deciding when to delay or cancel school because of weather is difficult. Our district covers 125 square miles and has many miles of dirt roads. This winter we have been told that the county is not going to be as aggressive with spreading salt on the roads, hoping to keep its costs down.

We live in Michigan so we expect snow in the winter. If there was a chart that identified the exact conditions necessary to delay or cancel school it would make things a lot easier. Unfortunately, no such chart exists.

My commitment is to keep our students and employees safe. As we go through this winter there will be times when we delay or cancel school. We do it in order to maintain safe conditions for our students as they travel to school.

There have been days already this year where parents have called and told me I should have delayed school because of fog. There were days last year when parents called and asked why I delayed school because of wind chill. If you ever have a question about why I made the decision that I made do not hesitate to contact me. We may not agree but I will let you know why the decision was made.

My hope is that we have a mild and dry winter so I never have an early morning call asking me to decide if we should delay or close school.

Challenging Times Ahead

The 2009-2010 school year has been a challenging financial time for school districts. The state reduced funding to schools by $165 per student. Here in Grand Ledge that was a reduction of over $850,000. If you add in our modest decrease in enrollment of 66 students, our district had a decrease in revenue this year of over 1.3 million dollars. We planned for part of this. We anticipated a decrease of $100 per student or a decrease in revenue of over $500,000. We also anticipated a decrease in enrollment of 84 students. In all we anticipated a decrease in revenue of 1.1 million dollars.

As we look ahead, we are a;ready planning for the 2010-2011 school year. Yesterday, December 22, a report was published the Senate Fiscal Agency that looked ahead to the 2010-2011 fiscal year. This agency, which provides insight for the State Senate as they plan for and prepare state budgets, states on page 41 of the report that there will be a 339.4 million dollar imbalance in the school aid fund for 2010-2011. Put another way that would require a reduction of $215 per pupil. In Grand Ledge that would be a reduction of over 1.1 million dollars. Together with another modest enrollment decline our district could face a potential loss of revenue of 1.5 million dollars for fiscal year 2010-2011.

As we continue to plan and prepare for the 2010-2011 school year, this report from the Senate Fiscal Agency just reinforces that unless there are some changes in how the state finances education there are challenging times ahead.

Update from Grand Ledge

It has been awhile since I wrote on this blog. The weeks between these posts have been interesting.

First, I presented a restructuring proposal to the Grand Ledge Board of Education. (More information can be found at the district website under the Our District tab.) This proposal asks the board to approve changes that would result in a savings to our district of 4.1 million dollars. The plan requires us to change the way we look here in our district.

This proposal was presented to the Board after months of discussion and planning. Two goals drove the development of this proposal. First, we needed to present a plan that prioritized our commitment to academics, and to a lesser degree preserve our commitment to the arts and athletics. The plan had to maintain or improve our academic focus - helping students be successful while they are enrolled in our school district and making sure they are prepared for the next step in their lives.

The proposal presented to the Board works hard to continue our commitment to our students. The proposal adds elementary counselors and an at-risk team for students in grades 7-12. Additionally it makes a commitment to keep classes within reasonable limits - K-2 would be 25 students, 3-6 would be 28, and grades 7-12 would be 29. An early childhood/kindergarten center is proposed. Funding for athletics and the arts, while cut, are still part of our the proposal given to the Board. Elective choices would still be available at the middle and high school. Music, art, and physical education would continue to be available at every level. Reading teachers and reading interventions still be a part of the district's program.

Secondly, the proposal had to save the district money. We have a structural deficit of two million dollars in our budget. We spend two million dollars more than our income. That has to be fixed. We also are receiving less state aid. The Michigan economy and revenue to the state continues to decline. This year we were anticipated a $100 per student drop in revenue. We were one of only 30% of districts in the state that anticipated a drop in state revenue. The drop we planned for added up to almost $520,000 less revenue than we received last year. The state actually has cut revenue by $292 a student. That's a drop in revenue of over 1.5 million dollars. Additionally, as with most Michigan school districts, we are experiencing a drop in enrollment. We anticipated we would have 84 fewer students this fall. We actually only lost 66 students. So while it is a drop in revenue of almost $623,000 it is not as bad as we anticipated.

How can our district save money? Unfortunately, 85% of our district's budget, as with every school district, is connected to people. So while we reduce our expenses for supplies, energy, and other non-personnel related matters, in the end we have to have fewer employees if we are to reduce our budget. That is incredibly difficult to do. Every one of our employees works hard everyday for our students. Our employees make a difference. The difficult part of trying to balance a budget, to make sure our expenses and our income are aligned, is that it will impact the lives of many employees.

As I said earlier, more details are on the restructuring link under the Our District tab on our district website.

The whole educational funding issue has been coming to a head here in Michigan. On November 10 a rally intended to spur communication with our state legislators was held at the Capital. The Save Our Students, Schools, and State (SOS) coalition was behind the rally. The goal is to help our legislators understand that continued cuts to funding will have a dramatic affect on the quality of our schools.

The legislators that I have spoken with, emailed, and called argue that schools need to become more efficient before they would agree to look at changing how schools are funded. I argue that Grand Ledge leads the way in becoming efficient. Our employees pay 30% of their health insurance. Our custodians and bus drivers agreed to significant contract concessions last year. In contract negotiations last year, every other employee group agreed to 0% on the base. Our administrative costs are in the lowest 18% of all districts in the state. We cannot do much more - yet they seem blind to the changes that we have made.

The SOS rally was an attempt to get parents, community members, and school employees rallying to save our state's investment in our schools. Parents and community members will truly make a difference. On our district website under the Board of Education tab we have a Capital Connections link that provides information that is important as we try to protect school funding.

Finally, students from Grand Ledge High School organized a rally on the Capital steps to fight for school funding. I am proud of our students and their interest in quality schools.

I will try and do a better job of updating this blog so that we can continue our conversations about issues that matter to the Grand Ledge Public Schools.