Coen started by talking about the positives at the high school. He said he had been tracking the drastically underachieving students. He explained what he considered that to be. He said that if a student can't graduate before the age of 21, we need to find another avenue for them to meet the spirit of the Free and Appropriate Public Education Act. He said its educational malpractice to keep students in high school that have no hope of graduating.
Attendance and credit acquisitions are up according to Coen but he gave no data to support this statement.
He then opened the floor to the approximately 10 teachers in attendance. No one spoke.
He then said the District is down 170 students. According to him, most have moved out of Burlington because of the high crime rate and the high murder rate. He said until the city gets a handle on this, we will continue to lose families. (He gave no data to support his claim),
He then said that "thousands of cars are coming in in from Illinois each day". He knows this because he can see them from his house in the morning. This means that people work in the area but don't live here. The school district is making an effort to attract families by trying to improve property values via the building trades classes. By remodeling one house at a time we will increase the property values. He's on a committee with the police chief and others and they want to get more cops in the streets. Cops, however, are leaving Burlington for better paying jobs. A teacher asked if we have volunteer police. Coen said we have an auxiliary civilian program but you must be 18. The police are heavily involved in our before/after school programs. Coen was a guest cook at the Maple Street BBQ last summer hosted by the police department.
A teacher asked about the building trades program and why we can't have a welding program like the one in Keokuk and whether it was a money issue. Coen said it wasn't a cost problem and he didn't know why kids weren't interested. He then said his nephew was/is in the welding program at SCC and said the kids from BHS were ahead of everyone else in the class. He felt the Pat Pickford was doing a good job of preparing our kids for the SCC program. He then said we have a robust economy with a number of opportunities for our students. For example CNH is hiring approximately 100 people for primarily the line and as welders. He said it's a good place to work. He then again used his nephew as an example. His nephew doesn' want to work at a factory and Coen felt this attitude was representative of a lot of young people. Coen said there are approximately 1700 job openings in southeast Iowa. He then talked about some canning factory where the workers wouldn't make eye contact with him and he told the personnel director that his "people are timid". I'm not sure what the point of this was.
A teacher asked about budget cuts. Coen said that cuts would begin at the Whitehouse but all facilities would be looked at. He thinks that we will become a 3A school and that 3A schools generally just have a superintendent, curriculum director, and a business director. But only the school board can make the decision on cuts. He then proposed grade alike buildings. When pressed, he admitted that the budget savings from this would be in reduction of teachers. But again, he said it wouldn't be his fault if teachers get cut because he doesn't make that decision, the school board does. When asked when grade alike buildings would happen, he said he wasn't sure, that it was up to the school board. When asked if the buildings were large enough to handle what he was proposing and he said yes. He said that Tim Keskerke has already mapped it all out and determined that the buildings are indeed large enough.
He then said that we can't run a negative balance and said the District is expecting a loss of over $1 million this year. He was asked whether this was a cash shortfall or a spending authority issue. He then said that we have 18% cash reserve and that we lost 170 students. The budget guarantee for next year will be 101% but only for next year. We need to get things in order before the funding cliff. He said we need to start planning now. He said the cash reserve is not there for a person to say we've lost 77 student per year for 20 years and let's keep spending the same way. He will present courses of action to the board and the board will make the decision. According to him, his job is to make sure that BCSD is healthy 10-20 years in the future. He also said that 85% of Iowa school districts are shrinking. BCSD has been hit hard because of "violent crime". He said Iowa is going the way of the Dakotas. Farmers are over the age of 50 and own large tracts of land that don't need many people to work on them. The school funding formula needs to be be rewritten to maybe include an excise tax or an income surtax for education.
A teacher asked with this financial bind and the changes in Chapter 20, how does the District intend to keep and attract teachers and stay within budget? Coen said he had talked to the head of the department of education about "the bad things they were doing to teachers". He then talked about how the PRAXIS test is causing the teacher shortage in Iowa. He said other states such as Missouri, Illinois, Minnesota, and Nebraska required lower scores. (I haven't fact checked this). He then talked about his meeting during the annual school board convention in Des Moines. He met with a variety of groups in an ad hoc meeting but nobody from the legislative educational committees chose to attend. He talked to a superintendent who had no one apply for a third grade teaching position this year. He said part of the problem is with baby boomers retiring. He also praised UNI for reminding potential teachers of taking the PRAXIS and trying to go to a portfolio instead of the PRAXIS. He thought people who do Americorps should be allowed teaching licenses in Iowa. He then stated we (I don't know if he was talking about the district or the community) have violence, poverty, and drugs. A teacher asked what are human resources department was doing locally to attract people to our district. He said there was going to be a Burlington job fair. Then he said the bid day had always been a big problem in hiring. He described it as being "stuck with bid day". With this gone, he said the District would be able to offer jobs to potential employees sooner. A teacher responded that Coen's description of bid day was incorrect. The lateness of bid day was due to the District not getting its act together and determining employment. needs earlier. Bid day occurred once the District made its determination of employment needs. Coen said he was correct but bid day contributed to the problem. He then said after the early retirements are accepted in February, the District will be ready to start hiring in March. A teacher asked if the District was going to continue to hire people who didn't take/pass the PRAXIS. Coen said that is was illegal to hire people without a PRAXIS score. He then asked the teacher if they knew of anyone like that. He then said the District should not be offering anyone a contract who hasn't passed the PRAXIS. Then he said there are alternative licenses like the building trades teacher hired with 60,000 hour of field experience. He said the District was aware of the teacher shortage and will try to mitigate the damage. He then said something about "gnashing of teeth, pain, and suffering".
A teacher asked about getting more subs. He said this was a problem locally and statewide. He blamed the AEA for part of the problem because they won't do all there training during the summer instead of during the school year. He said the state could save $20 million if they just stopped this but this didn't mean that money would make it to school district because it could be sent somewhere else. He said people would come after it for wages and that it is "low hanging fruit". A teacher asked wouldn't you have to pay teachers to get the training during the summer because it isn't during contract time. He said that was correct. He then said if the AEA fell under a community college that would save $10 million. Then he talked about the money spent on subs and the number of days people are gone and it will come to a head. He said something about there is a specific number of days listed in the handbook that you can be gone and wondered if people fell within those bounds. He said we spend $250,000 on subs. He said when he started teachers were given a letter if they were gone 10 days and he stopped that and told administrators to talk to the people instead. He found that people usually had "damn good reasons" for being gone. Then he said something about throwing stones when you live in a glass house. He said kids learn best with their teachers and that there is a lot of good stuff happening at the high school and that we need to continue to move in that direction.
A teacher asked about having an early out due to the cold and he said he was probably going to cancel school but he needed to confer with others. He said the cold threshold was -20 below either windchill or actual temp. He also said he got a call from a parent upset about the early out for the funeral and what to do. He told them to pick up their living child.
He then said that three years ago lunch at the high school was utter chaos and it has improved a lot. He hasn't had to chase kids with his truck across the high school grounds anymore. He thanked the high school for the standard of behavior. He meets with the high school administrators regularly about behavior issues but there are laws about special education students. He believes the next DE report card will be better and we will move away from our bad reputation. He said 85% of our students due what they are supposed to do.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete