Friday, June 7, 2013

Supplemental Material for the June 10, 2013 Board Meeting

Here are the documents provided to the School Board in connection with our upcoming meeting, to be held at 7pm on Monday June 10, 2013 at the Central Office Annex.

Items F1 and F2 are temporary appropriations resolutions which are put in place until the permanent appropriations resolutions are brought before the Board in September, after the Treasurer has prepared the budget, in partnership with the Superintendent. 

F5 authorizes the Operations department to purchase ten new buses. This reflects a long-standing practice to replace 10% of our fleet every year, making the average age about five years, which helps keep the cost of operation low, and improves service reliability.

Items F6-F8 are resolutions to approve updated Courses of Study for World Languages, Performing Arts, and Social Studies. I haven't read them through yet, but will be doing so this weekend. I encourage you to read them as well - this is what determines what your kids are taught in the classroom.

I'll also be spending time with the proposed changes to policies, as enumerated in item G1.

As always, let me know if you have questions or comments.


10 comments:

  1. Paul,

    Thank you for your posting of the materials. I fail to understand why this is not done on the school web site. The posting of the agend has not always been posted on the school site on Friday. When I asked a previous board president about that I was told they do not have to post it!

    Most companies with a board publish a board book 7 days in advance of the meeting. Is there a reason our posts do not make it until friday. It gives little time to research and ask questions prior to the meeting.

    Ready for tomorrow, really?

    Dave

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    1. Sorry Dave ANON but they except for Paul WILL NOT answer your questions if you got 3 weeks lead time

      Paul, why are we paying for weight room personnel over the summer. Organized practices are prohibited under OHSAA rules. We could be saving this expense
      year after year. This should not be a free ride expense for athletes for summer training. More to the point, when is every program going to ask for
      similar access in the summer at 1200 per pop.

      This expense should be undertaken by those participating not the taxpayers.

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    2. Rick: I've heard and understand your point about supplementals. It's but one of many areas of our spending that needs to be examined and evaluated. But again I remind you, what seems frivolous to some is felt to be essential by others. Some think it's an awful use of tax money, and other think it's a great use.

      The only way to reach sustainable compromise is through empathetic dialog.

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    3. This would appear to be a pretty flagrant violation, so I can only assume these are paid over the summer because of the election by staff to receive their 9 month salary spread throughout the year.

      Paul, can you confirm this please? Otherwise Rick is right and these payments need to be stopped.

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    4. M: I doubt that those are the only two possibilities. The question is whether having students work out in a weight room over the summer is a violation of OSHAA rules.

      I'll ask, but really, do you think our ADs would jeopardize the eligibility of our kids and our programs by such blatant disregard of the rules?

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    5. I'm looking at the OSHAA General Sports Regulations right now.

      Rule 7.3) Individual skill instruction may be received in any sport by a squad member at any time in individual lessons provided that these individual skill instructions do not violate any Board of Education, school administrators’ or coaches’ policies. Notwithstanding the foregoing provision,the coach may not conduct individual or group lessons for a squad member except during June 1 to July 31 and during the season of the sport.

      That alone seems to permit summer weight room workouts. Rick spoke of "organized practice," and I don't see where the OSHAA rules call weight room time an "organized practice."

      Then there is this one:

      8.2) Physical fitness programs may be conducted at any time, indoors or outdoors, and are not a violation of OHSAA bylaws and regulations as long as there is no coaching and instruction of sports techniques and skills.

      I'm okay with representing the position of you guys in the discussion about how much we spend to run our athletic program. But if you want to accuse folks of rules infractions, and want to use me as the conduit, then please base that accusation on a citation of the rule in question.

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    6. I think it is a very gray rule interpertation and the fact that there is more than one listed stipend which goes on year around if you note the compensation shows some sort of organized activity.

      If nothing else, then spending multiple stipends in this area should be part of the coaches compensation. In effect we are paying for every single activity that everyone does not have access to. As a supporter of equal funding for all schools in the state why do we have funds
      for this type of activity when some schools are still challenged providing academic tools with their available budget.

      It is not that I dont value athletics and training as I am a former D I athlete in college
      in track and cross country. As I remember we did just fine winning many championships in the MAC and at National level individual accomplishment and we did not need 3 to 4 weight room coaches, double dipping,

      Simply the reality of the dollars is becoming well you will threaten the cut off of busing to every student in the district instead of reighning in supplemental payments when IN FACT we are paying multiple supplemental not just to athletic areas but to multiple stipends totally 4 to 5,000 per year. and with the supposed busy schedule onew wonders on each are properly SUPERVISED And as noted before we pay in a weight room subsidy 4800 per year per person which is about 3 months of a social security.
      Call me crazy but we just dont seem to care about the thousands spent, nor the the tens of thousands because the public has been nuetered by the selfish acts repeated over and about you are hurting our kids. Those actions compared to the on the job actions against our kids pale in comparison. Why we cannot make a simple adjustment to a supplemental shows why our taxes are what they are and will grow another 6 to 7 mills

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    7. Rick: Thanks for your comment.

      All I can do is say once again that there isn't a right/wrong position to many of the things you bring up. As long as the minimum requirements defined by the state and federal government are met, a local school district is allowed to offer pretty much whatever programming it wants, provided it can raise the local funding necessary.

      Clearly, people come to our community because Hilliard City Schools has much to offer beyond the basics. Exactly what the district should offer, and how the available resources should be allocated are part of the local governance process.

      Part of it is done through representative government: ie the voters select five individuals who they want to make decisions on their behalf. No board member will ever be elected unanimously, nor will the five who are elected necessarily agree on everything.

      And then, unlike with the state or federal budget, the voters get to say directly whether they are willing to support the proposed cost of the programming the board recommends. Again, these levy votes will never be unanimous - some will think the 'ask' is too much and vote NO, while some will accept the proposed budget, and vote YES. Both perspectives will be convinced that the other is wrong.

      The democratic process is messy, but it's how we do things. It goes better when the voters demand information and do their homework, but the voters who choose to be ignorant and apathetic get one vote each too, and theirs count just the same.

      This is why I believe our communications strategy should be modeled like that of a retailer, who cannot assume the public is interested in learning more about their products. In that environment, one needs to craft a simple yet powerful message, and repeat it over it over, hoping that more and more 'consumers' get it over time.

      I've been saying this for lots of years. It's still my belief, and I'd still hope I can nudge my colleagues in this direction.

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  2. Paul,

    I was looking at some of th eitems and came across the item addressing expence reports. I did not see any lines drawn through. So is this new, did we not have a police or did I just miss this.

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    1. Strikethroughs indicate wording deleted from the policy. In the case of this policy, language was added, which is indicated in bold letters.

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