HomeMy WebLinkAboutAgenda - 04-26-2004- 6APPROVED 2/10/04
Facilitator's Meeting Notes
1 /27/04
2:00 PM - 4:.30 PM
Group members (6): Shirley Can away, Elizabeth Carter, Keith Cook, Barry Jacobs, .lolm
Link, Neil Pedersen. Staff: Rod Visser. Andy Sachs (facilitator).
Decisions:
1. Group ground rules:
• One speaker at a time
• Stick to task and topic
• Listen attentively to the speaker
• Share the floor
• It is OIC to disagree...please do so respectfully
• Raise and discuss new issues, doubts and differences with the group before going
public
• Decisions will be made within this group by unanimous consent among group
members (although not necessarily equal levels of enthusiasm)..
2. Draft definition of collaboration: In good faith, communicating, working together
and generating results across the school districts to enhance opportunities for students
in each district and/or to improve efficiencies within operations.
3. Next Steps in Collaborative Process:
Group will meet again February 10 from 1:45 PM to .3:45 PM at the Southern Human
Services Center. Desired outcomes for the 2/10 meeting are as follows:
• Decision on "what counts" as collaboration.
Clarification of "new paradigtn" for cross-district collaboration.
Integrating plans for three sets of activities over the next tlmee months: a series of
meetings between the two Boards of Education to advance their collaboration,
improving the working relationship among the tlu-ee elected boards (BOCC and the
two BOEs), and an April 26 meeting of the tluee elected boards,
Rod Visser will provide background information to all group members in advance of the
2/10 meeting, including documentation from the collaborative process that was begun
with Phil Boyle, results of surveys conducted by the two school districts, text of recent
proposals put forward by County Commissioners that describe their thoughts on
collaboration, and the CHCCS district's alternative to merger proposah
4. The cost of facilitation will be shared equally by the three boards represented in this
group.
Meeting Discussions
The six group members nret on 1/l7/DA will: the desired outcome of "defining
collabor°atiorr and irrdieator-s of success to be used when the hvo school systems continue
collaboration beyond today, "
Each shared personal thoughts on how satisfied he or she is with current state of
collaboration across the two school districts, including what he or slre means by
collaboration.
Mr. Cook said that collaboration across the school districts is not where he wants it to be.
He wants the districts to do a better job. He said that collaboration includes equality
across the participants, free choice ("not ramming something down someone's tlu-oat"),
and achieving an outcome that benefits the children in both school districts.
He added that he appreciated the BOCC convening today's "meeting of the minds"
because he recognized that efforts at collaborating were off track for a variety of reasons.
He said he wanted to work on what can be accomplished in the short term, He said that
for some of the ideas that have been raised for collaboration across the districts there
were financial constraints, scheduling constraints, and constraints set by the numbers of
children interested in participating in cross-district programming. He said that he hopes
that this meeting will lead to a meeting of the two full Boards of Education to establish
the Boards' connnitment to collaboration.
Ms. Carter said that the two districts are collaborating and would need clarification from
the Board of County Commissioners on what more it wants from the districts'
collaboration. She said that collaboration includes open communication and joint work
across district lines.
She added that some areas in which the districts are collaborating "do not count" to the
BOCC, such as transportation. Co-housing central office staff is not feasible, she said,
She identified an altenrative school as a possible area for collaboration, and said that the
two administrators should take the next step if this were a good idea, She wonders if
funding is available for such ideas as opening City School's AP Honors courses to
County students, or opening County vocational courses to City students. She said that
collaboration camrot supplant merger.
Dr. Carraway said that the two districts are talking aboutjoint opportunities, but have not
done anything to realize those opportunities. Collaboration includes communication and
working together, Uut it also needs to be evident; one should be able to show that
collaboration is taking place. The districts have made a list of potential collaborations,
"but every item bas a price tag." Collaboration should produce benefits for children in
both districts, she said.
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Mr. Link said that collaboration should generate an outcome where students realize
increased accessibility to some service or achievement. Evidence of collaboration would
be tangible, improved access by students to some function provided by the schools.
There need not be the same level of improvement across the two districts, but there
should be an increase in both. Students in each system should have an equal access to
educational opportunities, he said.
He offered the example of school nurses, and said that collaboration need not be limited
to allied services. He said that when parents of different districts ask the Manager and
BOCC at budget time to fund specific programs, such as Spanish teachers, he begins to
wonder if a consensus exists across the two districts on the level at which certain
programs should be provided. It would help him if the schools had consensus on
priorities.
Dr. Pedersen said that collaboration means two parties are each benefiting from working
together, He said that the two school districts are working together to benefit themselves.
For example, when both districts needed nurses, they collaborated, He also offered the
example of snow days: the districts need not reach the same conclusions about whether
to cancel classes, but they share information so that each is better aware of the situation
than it would be if the information was not shared. However, one does not collaborate
,just to collaborate. For example, if one district does not need mare Spanish teachers then
what would be the benefit to that district of collaborating on Spanish teachers?
He said that he saw three areas of potential. First, improving efficiency. He is willing to
explore this, although he does not know if opportunities really exist in this area. Second,
programming. He would like to look at programming for staff (e.g., staff development
workshops) as well as for students. Third, the working relationship. It would be a
"win/win" to ensure that communication is health, open and trusting across the two
school districts.
Dr. Pedersen identified leadership as a challenge to collaboration across the two boards..
It is not clear who should go first, who should run meetings, who'll take the initiative. hi
that void, he said, the BOCC is playing the role of convener, but this introduces another
dynamic. For example, when BOCCrs involved it is harder for the two school boards to
reach agreement in part because it feels to the school participants that the BOCC is telling
them what to do..
Mr. Tacobs said that collaboration has been discussed by the districts, but not embraced.
He agreed with the tluee areas of potential collaboration identified by Dr. Pedersen. He
referred group members to his own proposal for collaboration, which lists areas he would
like the districts to consider focusing on, as well as to other lists that have been generated
by other officials over the years. He said that Commissioner Carey proposed merger of
the two school districts in part because Mr, Carey is frustrated with the districts' efforts at
collaboration. The BOCC does not want to dictate collaboration to the school districts,
but the districts' history of collaboration is marked by utuavelirig, no outcomes,
difficulties, separate outcomes, repeated requests by the BOCC to collaborate, no action,
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and no change. Mr..lacobs said that his only measure of whether the districts are
collaborating is whether he feels they are doing so "in good faith." The goals of
collaboration should be helping the children in each district and malting the most of our
resources.. He said that collaboration requires a party to give up something, He said that
the group should not "seep perfection," noting that some in the County school district
were less than satisfied with the outcome of the collaboration around school nurses.
A more general discussion, follor»ed. Key points of the discussion nr°e as follows
It might be helpful if the districts collaborated on a shared definition of "mandate."
Which budget items are mandates and which are not? Which budget items are required
by state or federal authorities; which items are otherwise necessary to operations; which
fall into neither of these categories?
The two districts matte progress at different paces on different programs, which
sometimes places the City system ahead of the County system. To some City Schools
board members this is an awkward position to be in because they do not intend to come
across as superior to the County board.
School board members carmot control parents' voices, and so everyone should get used to
parents coming to the BOCC for programmatic funding,
Some collaborative initiatives will not be cost savings, but they still might be desirable
for improving students' access to opportunities. Cost efficiency should not be the only
measure of success.
BOCC members have sometimes acted disrespectfully toward the members of both
school districts. For example, Mr. Cools said that he was not consulted about More at
Four; the idea to house all pre-schoolers under one roof came "out of the blue." He said
that the BOCC should include the staff and elected officials who are working on public
education "every day" ou all matters concerning public education, rather than :going for
the sound bite," Similarly, a shared administrative facility "sounds good," but does not
matte sense if one considers that a headquarters should be centrally located to one's
operations. Headquarters has to be accessible to parents, for example. Also, when the
proposal was made to create a special committee chaired by Bill Friday no one from
either of two school systems was invited to participate.
Both districts have very tough choices to matte, but the choices sometimes are very
different. Perhaps the BOCC should create acategory offunding - through a county
wide tax, for example -that both districts together would then collaborate on distributing
(on an equal per pupil basis) to meet their respective needs,
There seems to be "two pazadigms" for collaboration. The old paradigm, which is "the
dance we do" and might not be changed in the short run, is to collaborate to benefit each
district only incrementally by finding small efficiencies on the margins or asking for new
funding from BOCC, We might call this "efficiency within the current structure." But a
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new paradigm we might explore is an approach to greater efficiencies and innovative
funding arrangements for very worthwhile collaborative endeavors, efforts that will really
reduce disparities and open up opportunities far students in both systems. Maybe this
would involve a county wide district tax. Regardless of the size of this fund, we could
explore opportunities that such a fund might offer. Wlxere would we put the additional
per pupil allotment if we had it?
Zt "kills" the members of the BOCC that the two systems are not funded equally.. BOCC
members see that the educational aspirations of County district parents are rising. The
two districts should talk further about what they can do together and also what BOCC can
do to ]xelp improve students' access to programs and outcomes. "We will support you."
At the close ofYhe gener°al disczr-s-sion, a di°aft definition of collaboration was
brainstormed mul them agreed upon with two caveats. First, there is not consensus that
this draft definition is any different, fi°orn what the two school districts ar•e cznrently
doing. Second, all group rnenrbez°s agreed to clarify "what counts " as collaboration so
that school district efforts at collaboration also meet the needs of the Board of County
Coznnzissioners.
Meeting Evaluation
Liked: structure at the begimxing of the meeting; group began speaking one at a time and
then relaxed the structured format as it moved into back and forth dialogue; group had a
narrow and well-focused objective for the meeting (not a laundry list of possible meeting
objectives) but a flexibility that allowed group to "stray" as needed; we are moving
forward; had a respectful discussion that encouraged honesty; group members
demonstrated commitment to its task by participating in spite of snow emergency today.
Suggested changes: provide light refreslrnrents for everyone.
Meeting Adjourned at appr°oa-imately 4:30 PM