I received an email last night criticizing me for yesterday’s article on Superintendent Ember Conley and the School board being held accountable for the educational outcome of their $66 million bond. No, it wasn’t from someone involved in the schools telling me I’m wrong about the bond (although, I’m sure I’ll get that). It was someone telling me that I was completely off base because the voters haven’t even approved the bond yet. The gist was, “How can you write such things? The people haven’t even had a chance to vote on it yet. When they vote it down, you’ll see.”

Yep. We’ll see.

Technically, the person is correct. The public hasn’t voted yet. That’ll come on November 3. There is even a group that has formed to oppose the bond. So, perhaps they’ll surprise me and create a message that resonates with the voter that causes enough people to say, “Hold on. Let’s not rush into this.” But I doubt it. Why?

It’s like Park City’s high school football team playing the University of Utah. If they played, our students would be outgunned, underfunded, and would be like children playing versus grown men. It’s the same with this fight.

The school district is meeting with the parent teacher organizations at each school to deliver their message. The school district hired a local PR firm, Panic Button Media, to publicize their point of view to date. They are likely hiring another PR firm to continue the process going forward. Moe Hickey, former school board member, is heading up the “Yes” committee and he is good at what he does. KPCW provides a platform almost each week for the school board to push their message (albeit with some tough questions from Leslie Thatcher). The Park Record, too, provides a platform for pushing the bond.

I’m not saying that what the “Yes” people are doing is wrong. In fact, they are doing what you do when you want to get something done. They are generally playing by the rules with a goal in mind. Pass a bond.

If you want to beat your competitor, you have to know who you are fighting. And in this case it’s a juggernaut.You are fighting Mike Tyson and he’ll bite off your ear if it wins him the fight. Stacked against you is the fact that this is an off year election and will be the only thing on the ballot in Summit County. If teachers and parents, persuaded by PTO meetings, show up and vote, that even lessens your odds.

At this point, in my opinion, if you don’t want this bond to pass you better hope for an Act of God, a 1000-year blizzard in early November, or for a procedural screw up on the part of the school district that invalidates the bond. The latter is fairly unlikely, due to the district’s business Administrator, Todd Hauber. If he doesn’t know ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING related to the business side of schools, I’d be shocked. He is more than competent. He is the guy you’d want on your side… but unfortunately in this case, he’s on the other side (if you are against the bond).

So, has the fat lady sung? If not, she is finishing her warm up. Almost…a … done… deal.

Yet, I love a good fight. Debate and argument are a fundamental part of democracy. I don’t think the bond should just be passed because “schools are good” or “I read in the Park Record that we are going to have trailers at Trailside” or the “Yes” side has more connections and thus more media coverage.

If you are against this bond, here are some procedural things you may want to investigate. This is just a list of things you may want to check out and understand if everything was done in the right way:

1. During the three community meetings where it was said that the community spoke and decided how to rebuild the Kearns campus(i.e. scenario 3), there might have been a quorum of school board members at some of the meetings. According to the Open Meetings Act, any time a quorum of members is present at a Meeting (defined as a convening of a public body to discuss, receive comment, or act on a matter under its jurisdictional or advisory power) the public must be provided notice. If there was a quorum present, these meetings were not noticed. I’m sure a School Board lawyer would argue that if a board member did not actively participate, it didn’t violate law. Yet, that’s not what the law says. In this case, one could argue that if a quorum of school board members was in attendance, they influenced the outcome of these meetings without noticing it to the public. So, if you care, I’m happy to provide videos that would let you determine how many school board members were at each meeting.
2. You could do much the same thing with Master Planning Committee meetings. You would check to see if their was a quorum of school board members present (especially at some of the latter meetings) and if so, you could press that issue. Like above, the school board will lawyer up… so you’d need to be willing to do the same if you pursued this.
3. The school board cannot spend any funds to “push the bond”. So, when Panic Button Media was hired to be part of this project this had to be only in a “present the facts” capacity. I have no idea whether there is any violation here but I suspect it would be hard, when you really do want to push the bond, to not slip up and provide direction to your PR firm that isn’t purely fact based. In this case, you would want to GRAMA request all emails between the superintendent, Todd Hauber, and Panic Button media.
4. Along the same lines, you could look for statements by school board members, representing the district, that are not fact based. If a school board member is speaking for himself, however, he or she has first amendment rights. So school board member Tania Knauer could say that she fully supports the bond. However, she could not say that the school board wants you to vote for the bond.
5. Just like stated above, it is a conflict of interest for someone paid out of public funds to push a bond. The timing of Moe Hickey leaving the school board on 7/31 and leading the “independent” committee for the bond in August is interesting. Mr Hickey received $23,629.06 in compensation in 2014. I’m not familiar with school district rules but if he was paid in August or was still on the district’s health care plan in August, there may be a little problem there.
6. You’d want to evaluate the timing of the submitted bond language to ensure that it was submitted to the Summit County Clerk, Kent Jones, on time (75 days before the election). From my experience, his office date stamps everything. If the date stamp was before 8/18, when the school board voted on the issue or after 8/20, it doesn’t meet the 75 day requirement per Utah election law.
7. You’d want to ensure other requirements are followed, like public meetings, voter pamphlets, etc. You’ll find that in the Utah Code, Title 11, Chapter 14.

I’m sure there are other procedural angles you could follow. If you are going to go this route, I’d recommend doing it before the election. It will be that much harder to say, “The school board violated these procedures and the bond should not be allowed” when it gets 70% of the popular vote. However, if you find a procedural problem and bring it out ahead of time, you may influence people’s’ opinion. That way, you aren’t crying sour grapes.

So, I’m sticking with my original argument. I believe the fat lady has sung. Defeating this ballot initiative will be difficult if not almost impossible.

Do I think it should be defeated? I see both sides. Only time will tell, though, whether this is money well spent. That said, if you are against the bond and want a chance, you better bring your “A” game because you’re in for a hell of a fight.

School Superintendent Dr. Ember Conley took over the reigns of the Park City School District in 2013. In that time, she has worked hard to continue Park City’s tradition of being one of the best school districts in the state and is working towards Park City being recognized for the offering the best schools in the country. She appears focused on using data to guide the course of the school district. Yet, she is about to embark on what will be her most challenging endeavor yet during her Park City tenure.

Over the course of the next three years, the foundation of the educational system will change in Park City. All day Kindergarten will be offered to all families in Park City. This causes more children to be in our elementary schools, thus pushing them to their capacities. Therefore, 5th grade will be taken out of each elementary school. A new school will be built at Ecker Hill where 5th and 6th graders will be educated. 7th and 8th grade will now be at Ecker Hill, as well. Because of the All Day Kindergarten, the tag on effects include moving 9th grade into the high school. The high school isn’t big enough to accommodate these students, so it will be expanded. The expansion of the high school has to happen somewhere, which means that Dosier Field may be torn down and relocated. Since that is going to happen, the reasoning goes that they might as well look at all athletic facilities at the Kearns Campus and see what should be upgraded. This $66 million plan will change the entire face of Park City Schools.

Just what started the cascade of changes? Dr Conley’s contention that the district absolutely must have all day kindergarten to meet the needs of our Hispanic population. It seems that in 2014, SAGE standardized test results indicated that only 9% of Hispanic 11th graders were proficient in english. Dr Conley’s contention is that the extra 3-plus hours per day of Kindergarten will reduce the achievement gap and put Hispanic students on par with other students by third grade.

It is true that the School District had a Master Planning Committee that recommended changes to the school board. Yet, these changes were recommended based on academic needs, primarily the direction that we will have all day kindergarten. It is also true that the School Board was the one to ultimately approve all day kindergarten, yet they relied on the direction from Dr. Conley to make that decision.

So as Steven King wrote, Dr. Conley, “It’s your cat now.”

And frankly, it’s a grand strategy if she can pull it off. One of the greatest challenges of any sizable school district is to successfully educate the economically disadvantaged. The difficulty in judging that success is the variability in the data. For instance, in this year’s SAGE results, between 20% and 30% of Hispanic 11th graders were proficient in english. That’s at least a 100% improvement this year, before any buildings are built, or grades realigned. That is likely either due to our teachers finding a way and/or just a different group of kids. Yet, we have to have some means of judging whether this initiative was successful.

I believe one statistical way of doing so, is looking at the first third grade class of Hispanic kids that will attend all day kindergarten. So, if all day kindergarten begins next year, the 2019-2020 school year will begin to tell us (through a test like SAGE) if this plan is working. We should see that HISPANIC kids scores are on par with the rest of the school. For instance if we look at our best school (per SAGE results), Jeremy Ranch Elementary, 20-30% of Hispanic 3rd graders are proficient, while their caucasian counterparts are 67% proficient. If that 67% number stays consistent, our 2019-2020 class of Hispanic 3rd graders should be scoring in the 60% range. Let’s take our least performing elementary school (per SAGE), McPolin. 11-19% of Hispanic 3rd graders are proficient while 50-59% of caucasian kids are. Again, by 2019-2020, all kids should be in the at least the 50% range (and why not the 60% range).

We should also look for those results to stay consistent as our kids progress through school. This isn’t just about 3rd grade, it’s about a quality education for all kids through graduation.

Dr Conley has made a big leap with her plan and the school board has jumped in with her. Given that the average tenure for a school superintendent is 4 years, it is unlikely that Dr Conley will be here in 2019 to see if her plan worked or through the next decade to ensure that the success continues. If she does unfortunately follow trends, and pursues other alternatives, we’ll likely need to look to our current school board members to see this through and judge the success. Many of them will likely be in our community, and a few probably still on the school board. So at least there will be some people to heap praise on or hold accountable when we start to see the results.

As they say, “Fortune Favors the Bold.” When taken as a whole this was a very bold idea, with lots riding on it. Can our school district bring test results of Hispanic kids on par with others? If yes, that may be the biggest win in the history of Park City Schools. If not, $66 million could have been used in our community in much better ways.

Let’s hope that Dr Conley and the School Board were just the right amount of bold in pursuing this course.

I received a letter from a Friend of the Park Rag. She has been involved in the Park City School District for many years. She wanted to make sure that the community was aware of many of the good things the school district is doing in order to help our Hispanic kids.

I just finished reading your post about the potential impact of the bus ride on Hispanics. Along those lines I wanted to point out some really good stuff I see going on around the district that helps Hispanics, which I only just learned about this week. At TMJH, there’s a Spanish class for native speakers. Since native speakers already have oral skills, this class focuses on reading and writing. I can’t imagine that his class is necessary to meet state foreign language requirements, so I see it as something extra the district is offering students to solidify their native language in a way they’re not getting at home. I think that’s really great.

I’ve also learned that this is the third year that Ecker has a 7th grade math class that meets every day. As you probably know, Ecker, TMJH, and PCHS have a block schedule, so every class meets every other day. But kids who are struggling in math have a special class that meets every day to help those students and make sure they don’t fall behind. One of the teachers of this class has told me that most of the kids in this class are Hispanic. So this is another positive thing the district is doing for our kids.

From having been involved with the school district for many years, I can tell you that our district is going to extraordinary lengths to help our lower performing kids, most of whom are Hispanic. 

Below is a chart of the most recent SAGE (standardized test) for each school in Park City. SAGE is described as a rigorous test designed to test the proficiency of students in specific subjects. As was the case last year, the high school is doing well, Jeremy Ranch elementary show the most proficiency of any school in our district, and McPolin elementary should probably be torn down and rebuilt because if we’ve learned anything from TMJH it’s that the primary driving force behind any child’s education is the building in which they are taught needs some more work.

The State of Utah has released 2015 Sage Test Results for our schools. The Sage test is a standardized test that attempts to tell whether students are proficient in subjects like Math, Science, and English. When the results came out last year, the school district did a massive campaign to try to walk people off a ledge, due to what may have been perceived as low test scores.

Out of that process came a pledge from our school district that these scores would improve the following year. The district was working with each of its teachers to ensure that students needs were being met.

Well, good news, it’s now the next year and we get to see whether that pledge has been followed through upon. The 2015 SAGE results are in. So, how did Park City schools do?

Park City improved in each of three areas. The percentage of students with english proficiency went from 57.2% in 2014 to 59.1% in 2015. Math proficiency went from 52.4% in 2014 to 55.6% in 2015. Science also improved, going from 55.9% to 60.9% proficiency.

If we compare rankings across the state, we are the 14th best school in English, 18th best in Math, and 14th best in science. So, we aren’t the best district in the state (per these scores) but in English and Science we are right at the edge of the top 10% (14 out of 140 districts). For science we are in the top 13%.

The spreadsheet of results can be found here. I’ll be breaking out individual schools over the next few days.

I was having a debate with a friend over whether the additional travel time that will be required for 5th and 8th graders to travel from areas like Prospector to Ecker Hill was discriminatory toward our Hispanic kids, since that population is a minority and Park City’s Hispanic population is higher near the Kearns campus (thus impacting them more than other populations). We ultimately concluded that it may be discriminatory but that doesn’t mean it’s illegal. My friends point was that no matter where you put the school, someone is impacted.

She had another good point though. She said, aren’t Hispanic kids generally faring much worse in our schools? I said, “yes”, and quoted the Superintendent’s stat that only 9% of our Hispanic 11th graders are proficient in English. She said, “what’s the impact of the additional travel time, especially if by bus, of travelling from Prospector to Ecker Hill (vs Prospector to the Kearns Campus)”?

That answer is probably somewhere between 20 to 30 minutes if travelling by car or 45-plus minutes if traveling by bus. Currently 6th and 7th grade students make that journey but under the new plan, that will be 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students. So more students are impacted. Then we have to take into account studies that indicate that when adolescents get as little as 30 minutes less sleep each night their performance is impacted. Riding a bus for an hour will thus impact waking times, unless later start times are introduced for 5th to 8th grades.

Census numbers tell us that about 1,800 Hispanic persons live in the area between Old Ranch Road and municipal Park City (1500 of those 1,800 Hispanic persons live within very close proximity to Kearns). In contrast, the population of Hispanic persons in other areas (i.e. Pinebrook, Kimball Junction, Trailside, Jeremy Ranch) total approximately 1100. That means there are about 63% more Hispanic persons near the Kearns campus than are near to the Ecker Hill campus.

So it is likely many kids in our hardest hit educational group, will likely have some additional hardship, because of moving two additional grades to the burbs, that requires more travel time, thus impacting performance.

Now, does that fear come to fruition? Do our Hispanic kids get a worse education because of this? I guess we’ll see. There are so many variables that it would be hard to prove (either way). That said, it sure does seem like a bit of a head-wind.

The one thing I’m surprised about, though, is that this never seemed to come up in School Board discussions over the plan. There was a lot of talk over all day kindergarten to help our Hispanic kids and a little talk over school start times, but the two concepts never seemed to be discussed in concert. Never once did I hear the question asked, “What’s the impact of travel times to our Hispanic kids if we move 5th and 8th grades out to Ecker?” Nor did I hear an answer.

I know the School Board’s Master Planning Committee spent about 9 months discussing school needs, but the more I consider the issue, the more I wonder whether the School Board spent enough time to really understand all of the impacts of the choices they made.