Yes, I have been critical of the School District in the past. Will I be as critical going forward? Probably.

Yet, I have to admit that whoever came up with Superintendent Ember Conley having office hours at Hugo Coffee on Fridays is pure genius. According to the Park Record, Dr Conley will be at Hugo Coffee on Fridays, through May, from 8:30 AM to 9:30 AM to answer questions from citizens.

My first question is, “What’s a professional learning community?” Just kidding, I think she’s explained that 20 times on KPCW. I think this is a great move. I’ll be there Friday to see how this is shaping up.

Good move school district.

Last week the Park Rag received an anonymous tip instructing us to look at a post entitled Goodbye Journalism on a blog called Treasure Mountain Junior High Park City Post. The post indicated that Journalism class, as well as other well-like electives were being taken away for the 2016-2017 school year. According to the post, “Taking its place is a new schedule, which includes morning I-Time, a 25-minute study session.”

With the topic being journalism, of course we were interested. While deciding to be a journalist as a career is currently a tough road to hoe, journalism classes teach valuable skills like writing, criticism, logic, and interpersonal skills. The post author also stated that she is concerned that:

• Replacing real classes with I-Time should no longer be needed once someone hits 8th grade.
• If the school holds kids hands with programs like I-time, instead of classes, students will not learn how to do things for themselves.
• Electives provide something “fun” to do at school, and that is needed.
• There is already an after school help lab, to assist students who have questions
• Students that may be interested in Journalism will not have an opportunity to try it out.

We reached out to the school district and spoke with TMJH Principal Emily Sutherland to ask about these changes. Ms. Sutherland told us that the expansion of I-Time had nothing to do with cancelling classes. She stated that Journalism was not being offered next terms because it was not growing and was not “hugely popular.” She said the school district is attempting to align all classes with CTE Pathways (Career and Technical Education Pathways). According to the district’s website “CTE provides courses and pathways consistent with industry standards. Exploratory courses begin in the 7th grade, and subsequent courses teach students specific job readiness and job skills, which can lead to employment and post secondary education.”

Ms. Sutherland also indicated they were always tinkering with classes offered and said they are planning on adding the following classes next year:

• Public Speaking and Broadcasting
• Exploring Computer Science
• Another Level of Biology
• Additional Dual Language Immersion opportunities

So, it appears that this change, while unfortunate for those students who love Journalism class, has been thought out. If classes had to be cut, we wish it could have been something else beside Journalism; however, it seems the district is not cutting classes to simply add an independent study.

We hope in the future that there will be enough interest to force the school district to offer the class again. Until that time, if you are a student, and want to work on something close to real Journalism, we’d love to have you write for the Park Rag. We have no money but we have lots of ideas. Send us an email if you are interested.

Something I have heard repeatedly is that the Park City School District is the #1 school district in the state. It reminds me of those old Enterprise Car Rental commercials. You’d see some guy proclaim that Enterprise was #1… they pick you up!

But, regardless of the spin, you really knew that Hertz was #1.

This weekend, I decided to dig into the claim by the school district that it was #1. What I came away with is while the Park City School District may like to declare itself number #1, and this may be true at an aggregate level, individual grade level results paint the picture of a good, but not perfect, school district.

For weeks, maybe months, I have heard the claim that we were the best district in the state. I had reviewed the standardized test score numbers and I couldn’t figure out exactly how we were the best. Then today I was searching for something else and up popped a documents entitled, “District Narrative.” This Park City School District document explained that according to SAGE test results our district overall was #1 in English Language Arts. Yet, I had previously looked at SAGE test results and never saw our schools as the top performer.

I decided it was worth a second look. Here is where our schools stand at each grade level:

• 10th grade English we are 10th in the state.
• 9th grade English we are 36th in the state
• 8th Grade English we are 48th in the state
• 7th Grade English we are 28th in the state
• 6th Grade English we are 66th in the state
• 5th Grade English, our best school (Jeremy Ranch Elementary), was 20th in the state
• 4th Grade English, our best school (Jeremy Ranch), was 4th in the state. Trailside was 5th.
• 3rd Grade English, our best school (Parley’s Park), was 61st in the state.

So, perhaps we are the best district by some cumulative measure; however, I wouldn’t be glowing, as our district is doing, about any results beyond 4th Grade English and perhaps 10th grade English. In fact Weilenman Charter School ranks about 20 places ahead of our schools in 3rd grade English. That said, I’m not sure what weight to put on standardized tests when I consider consider educational success, but since the Park City School District markets our SAGE test as “Park City is #1, I guess I’ll go with it.

Gut feeling tells me that Park City schools are better than average.Yet, when I hear the spin that “Park City School District” is the best in the state and “now we need to be the best in the country,” it gives me pause. “Best in State” makes it sound like we are clearly better than everyone else at everything. Looking at individual grades, it looks like in many cases we have a lot of work to do.

In case you are interested, here is the spreadsheet of 2015 SAGE results.

In a previous post about the Park City School Board, I asked the question “Should Community Opinion Matter to the Park City School Board?.” In the comments section, that article somewhat devolved into a discussion of whether the school board/district should have to watch social media and should the public expect that comments made on social media are “answered” by the powers that be.

First, I’ll state my opinion… Do I ever expect that City/County Managers, Council Persons, Planning Commissioners, government employees, school board members, etc. ever read The Park Rag? Absolutely not. I’m honored when they do. However, If I don’t email them, or show up at a meeting and say something, I have no expectation of any sort of response. Heck, even when I email, I have no expectation of response. Maybe other opinions vary.

However, that does not mean that social media does not matter (sorry for the double negative when talking about school related topics).

In days before Facebook and Next Door, when blogs were not prevalent, and the word tweet made people think of the song “Rocking Robin”, did people care about their community? Of course they did. How did they express those concerns? They voiced them to neighbors. They voiced them to friends on the phone. The talked about the issues in coffee shops. The difference was that there was no “network.” The conversation ended with your friend Sue. Sue’s friend Tom never heard it. Tom’s friend Jim never heard it. However, in today’s networked world, many people hear it.

That’s the problem when members of a group like the Park City School board dismiss “social media” out of hand. They think it’s Ok to say thing like, “How are we supposed to respond to comments on social media? Unless you email me directly or say it to my face, I won’t hear it.” That line of thinking is that of a RELIC.

Social media is not a new thing. This great post by Ben Thompson sums up social media during the last 8 YEARS. He highlights comments made by Clay Shirky who summarizes just how social media has taken over politics in the last half decade:

Social media is breaking the political ‘Overton Window’ — the ability of elites to determine the outside edges of acceptable conversation (link). These limits were enforced by party discipline, and mass media whose economics meant political centrism was the best way to make money (link). This was BC: Before Cable. One or two newspapers per town, three TV stations; all centrist, white, pro-business, respectful of authority (link). Cable changed things, allowing outsiders to campaign more easily. In ’92, Ross Perot, 3rd party candidate, campaigned through infomercials (link).

After Cable but Before Web lasted only a dozen years. Cable added a new stream of media access. The web added a torrent (link). This started with Howard Dean (the OG) in ’03. Poverty was the mother of invention; Dean didn’t have enough $ to buy ads, even on cable (link) but his team had Meetup & blogs… (link). After webifying Perot’s media tactics, Dean pioneered online fundraising. Unfortunately for him, his Get Out The Vote operation didn’t (link). That took Obama. Obama was less of an outsider than Dean (though still regarded as unelectable in ’07) but used most of Dean’s playbook (link). And then there was vote-getting. Facebook and MyBarackObama let the Obama campaign run their own vote-getting machine out of Chicago (link).

The new scale Facebook introduces into politics is this: all registered American voters, ~150M people, are now a medium-sized group (link). Reaching & persuading even a fraction of the electorate used to be so daunting that only two national orgs could do it. Now dozens can (link). This set up the current catastrophe for the parties. They no longer control any essential resource, and can no longer censor wedge issues (link)

While I realize the above quote is talking national politics, it’s not that different for local affairs. While the city and county fiddle about solving transportation issues, I’ve heard about (but not seen, to be fair) that there is a Facebook group that tells each other about real time traffic problems around Park City. If you want to hear about important issues that happened in a school board meeting late on Tuesday, does the Saturday Park Record give you what you need to know in a timely basis? Maybe but you’ll probably find a post the day after the meeting on NextDoor telling you about something you should be aware of.

More importantly, if our leaders are not paying attention to public opinion, they are missing out. If the school board looks out into the “audience” at a meeting and sees six eyes, four of which are reporters for KPCW and the Park Record, they should know that the community still cares about many of the issues. People just don’t have the time to attend meetings in person. They may catch up on meetings by watching video (which the school district does a great job of) or by hearing from friends on social media about the issue. If a person then has an opinion, they will then likely express that on the medium in which they learned about it: Twitter, NextDoor, Facebook, etc.

So, should our School Board and school district administrators spend their time scouring social media for public comments, so that they can answer them? Of course not.

Should they be aware that social media impacts a large proportion of the public’s view on issues that are important to the school board? Of course.

Government officials that ignore social media do so at their own peril.

While this issue has morphed over time, I recall hearing on KPCW that top district personnel hadn’t heard anything negative from teachers about removing reading aides from our classroom. I’ll say that I have heard comments from both teachers and reading aides about this change via social media. They aren’t happy. Given that, who looks more informed? A guy writing a “blog” or those in charge of our schools.

That is why social media is important.

Information has been floating around social media about a “special” school board meeting yesterday regarding raising taxes. The implication was that the board was planning on raising taxes later this year.

That may or may not be true but their was nothing sinister about this special meeting. It seems that School Board Business Administrator Todd Hauber believes that the Utah State Legislature will pass legislation requiring a group like the Park City School District to declare that they may raise taxes by March 4 (if they want to increase taxes this year).

So, while you may not be in favor of the school district raising taxes this year, that’s not what this meeting was about. This meeting was about ensuring that the school board has options later this year for increasing funding.

Therefore, at most, this meeting was an indicator that increasing property taxes may be a possibility in the future.

Here is the 7 minute video of the discussion at the school district yesterday, if you’d like to see it for yourself:

Over the past few weeks, I’ve heard various school-related people make the statement that they aren’t trying to hurt our kids with the decisions that they make. For instance, School Superintendent Dr. Ember Conley had this exchange with KPCW’s Leslie Thatcher on Monday:

Leslie Thatcher: “It doesn’t sound like you have convinced those signing a petition. They are basically saying that this change is going to have a huge negative impact on our kids.”

Dr. Conley: “I live and breathe this job and this community and for our students. I would never do anything to harm our students. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. Change is really hard”

First, I want to make it clear that I (and most people I know who have been critical of the board/district) don’t believe the School Board or the Superintendent have some master plan to harm our children. You don’t run for a basically non-paid position like the school board, that lasts 4 years, with the intent to destroy our schools. I assume the reason is because you have a passion for it and want to instill your values and ideas on our educational system.

That said, it does concern me that criticism of ideas is sometimes interpreted as a personal attack. For instance, I don’t think the majority of the 435 people signing a petition to keep our reading aides in our classrooms think Dr. Conley or Dr. Einhorn are trying to hurt our kids intentionally. I would guess the majority of the 435 people just disagree with removing reading aides from our classrooms. They just think it’s the wrong thing to do.

Likewise, when Dr. Conley uses the “I am not trying to harm our kids” statement as an answer to a question like Ms. Thatcher’s on Monday morning, it does everyone a disservice. An answer like that doesn’t explain the district’s position. I know board members and Dr Conley have answered those questions many times, in many places, but Ms. Thatcher provided Dr Conley with an opportunity to summarize her thoughts and convince some of those 435 people signing the petition that perhaps the school district knows what it is doing.

Instead of saying, I’m not trying to harm our kids, she could have said something like, “This will actually have a positive impact on our children. ESL students will be better off because studies have shown that reading aides are ineffective in helping ESL kids and the only known factor to improve performance in English Language Arts is by focusing on Kindergarten and providing an interventionist as ESL students progress. Non ESL students will benefit because once ESL students are performing better, teachers will have more time to focus on every student individually. So, while it seems that removing reading aides is detrimental to our students, I believe it will benefit almost every student in our school district.”

Now, is any of that true? I don’t know. I just made it up. However, I assume if the school district is making this change that they have as good or better reasoning.

What is the role of the Park City School Board? I hadn’t really considered the question until a Park Rag commenter mentioned the subject. Even then, I guess I thought it was one of those questions that gets brought up now and then but is more hypothetical…

until….

I received an email exchange between a citizen and a Park City School Board member about removing Reading Aides from classrooms and a petition by citizens to get those aides back in the classroom. The citizen’s email can be summarized by a closing statement, “I can tell you that everyone with whom I have spoken has already read, and heard, ‘The Narrative,’ and all are still wanting for details that justify the elimination of crucial instructors in our elementary schools.”

The school board member responded with an email that began, “Thank you for all the time you have taken on this issue. Although I understand that there are a lot of people that have signed the petition we do not make education decisions based on community opinion.”

“We do not make education decisions based on community opinion”? What? The School Board is elected by the community. The School Board serves the community interest. This is like saying, “Community you are too dumb, so we make decisions for you.”

As the back-story to this whole issue, the school district is removing Reading Aides from elementary classrooms, (mostly) because “english as a second language” kid test scores aren’t high enough and what the district has done to date has failed (according to the district). So, they are getting rid of Reading Aides, hiring one “Interventionalist” per school, and offering All Day Kindergarten because the district “has to do something.”

As a further back-story, the problem with the district’s line of thinking is that many studies show that All Day Kindergarten’s benefit (over part day Kindergarten, which we have now) typically disappears by first or second grade. The other issue is that Kindergarten isn’t mandatory, so the very students the district thinks they are targeting may not even show up.

Alright, back to the quote… “We do not make education decisions based on community opinion.” I could see if the district had a rock solid plan, that was indisputable based on facts, yet the public was making demands that were unreasonable and idiotic, that the district may say “public, you just aren’t educated enough on this topic.”

However, that’s not the case here. The Park City School District appears to be taking a flyer on trying to “fix” low test scores in low performing groups and the public is calling them out on it. By the way, 400+ people have signed the petition to keep Reading Aides in our schools. If you assume that most people signing a school petition have kids in school, that likely represents between 10%-20% of our kids. You may dismiss 5% of the people when they say “what’s going on?”… but 10% to 20%?

So, what is the role of the Park City School Board? Should the board not make education decisions based on community opinion? The issue I have with this is that almost every decision the board makes is an educational decision. Should the board not factor in community opinion? If at some point community opinion becomes overwhelming, should they not change course?

The real answer is that the board doesn’t have to do anything. They’ve been elected and can do what they want and think is best. I don’t think the board is acting maliciously. However, they may have been backed into a corner on this one.

If the board really does feel that they don’t need to listen to the community, and that they are acting in our students’ best interest, then I guess the public’s only recourse is either voting those individuals out of office or waiting for results to see if the decisions they made worked.

What’s more concerning is that our community’s opinion doesn’t appear to count. I guess that means that we as a public should no longer show up at board meetings and express our feelings. I guess it means that parents shouldn’t share their opinions with teachers. I guess it means that the school district is above us all.

Does that feel right? I don’t think so.