On Tuesday, the Park City School Board will be meeting at 4 PM to discuss a number of items related to their Master Planning Committee, grade realignment, tearing down of schools, rebuilding schools, etc. Unfortunately I won’t be able to attend, but I would encourage you to be there to voice your opinion. Public comment will begin at 5:30 PM at the School Board District Office (on Kearns BLVD).

This meeting is the probably the last chance to provide your input into the process.

Below is how an interview with representatives of the Park City School Board began on KPCW this morning…

Leslie Thatcher (KPCW): “It sounds like there is a unified decision to not follow the Master Planning committee recommendation and go ahead and move Dosier Field.”

Tania Knauer (Head of School Board): “80% of what we are looking at is what the the Master Planning Committee has been talking about for 6 months… We took a straw poll [in favor of moving Dosier] but we have a week or two to change our minds.

What Ms. Knauer seems to be saying is that the school board had some light discussions about the subject of moving Dosier and a majority of people were leaning towards expanding the high school west and tearing down Dosier. What actually happened is that Park City School’s Superintendent demanded asked the board to tell her the direction they were headed so they could start figuring out the amount of bonds they needed.

What I don’t understand is why not just say it. Say, “All the board members, except Nancy Garrison, were in favor of tearing down Dosier and expanding the high school to the west. We did this because it allows future expandability, it keeps our academics more centrally located, and it probably costs about the same to get a whole new stadium as it does keep Dosier (at least that’s what we heard). So, unless the heavens and Earth move, that’s what we are doing.”

Be strong, for better or worse, and tell people what you are thinking. Give them a reason to show up at next week’s meeting and tell you they don’t like the idea. Don’t give them a reason to stay at home, because you are aren’t sure how you’ll vote. Encourage confrontation. Encourage different points of view. Don’t run from it or try to deflect it. Embrace it.

If you do that, years on your actions will be judged not on whether you managed to get a school bond passed but whether you made good decisions that ultimately benefited students, teachers, parents, and our community.

Shouldn’t that be what the school board is aiming for?

On Wednesday, the Park City School Board met to discuss the recommendation of its Master Planning Committee on tearing down, rebuilding, and adding on to ours schools. Here are some random thoughts from the 5 hours of the meeting I was able to watch:

• The school district will go forward with a bond. It will likely be primarily for tearing down Treasure Mountain, adding on Park City High School to the west, moving Dosier Field to the east side of campus, redoing the traffic flow on the Kearns campus, adding on to McPolin, and building a 5/6 at Ecker Hill.
• There was a great debate over exactly what was needed to “add on to McPolin.” School Board member Julie Eihausen gave an impassioned plea that she was elected to help ensure fiscal discipline and that she didn’t believe adding on to McPolin was fiscally smart. She essentially asked why we should add capacity before we need it and risk using it on out of district students. Administrators at McPolin essentially said they would have enough room for all day Kindergarten, without adding on. Yet, the school superintendent, Dr Ember Conley pushed hard for it.
• After all that, they still decided to include it in the bond… but said “the money wouldn’t be used unless it was really needed. That’s a little bit like my 3 year old saying “just give me the cookie. I won’t eat it unless I’m hungry.”
• All I could do was try to read Ms. Eihausen’s expressions on her face regarding the “McPolin money” still being included in the bond. I wouldn’t say her expressions showed she was happy with that route and I wouldn’t say she completely won the battle, but it does stand up there with one of the best tries at being fiscally responsible that I have see with regard to this process. So, I guess this is one we’ll have to keep a close eye on over the next 10 years to make sure that $3-$4 million required to add on to McPolin is only used ONLY IF NEEDED…and always stands available should it be required.
• It was said that the discussion over rebuilding Treasure Mountain Junior High started the master planning process but that the growth of Park City is what is forcing so many changes with regard to this process. I would say that the stated reasons for rebuilding are a little bit like sands in the desert — constantly shifting. But since we are about at the end of this process, we’ll go ahead and hold the school district to growth and the need to help our Hispanic kids as the reasons for this project.
• I know it’s just a personal opinion, but I think they have misjudged the “school” growth needs in the Basin. In 5 years I wouldn’t be surprised to see less kids in our schools than today. Factor in a coming recession, lack of residential space in the Park City school district boundaries, the rise of second homes, and the district low end growth estimates (loss of .3% of kids per year) and a forecast of fewer kids isn’t exactly crazy. Again, I could be wrong but we’ll see.
• This meeting had some of the best discussions I have seen with regard to the school board. You can tell these people really care about doing what they think is best.
• At the end of the meeting, it was mentioned that the entire school board needed to provide a unified front on this plan. During a straw poll, School Board Member Nancy Garrison was the only member who thought we should leave Dosier where it is and expand the high school to the south. Yet, the board will provide a unified front stating that they all believe the same thing. That seems to happen a lot, if not always, with the school board. I think that is a huge mistake. It’s as if they think that any alternative opinions makes them weak. I think it makes them stronger. Which is a stronger statement? “We the school board completely agree on this entire proposal” or “We the school board have some differing opinions about some of the details of this plan. For instance, Nancy doesn’t believe that the high school should expand to the west. However, she overwhelming believes the plan AS A WHOLE is the right thing for our community.” To me, one sounds manufactured and while the other one sounds real.
• I think Julie Eihausen’s comments about looking to change boundaries before we invest additional millions makes a lot of sense and wish they would have considered that more strongly.
• The bond the public will be asked to vote on in November is really for allocating money around general concepts (like moving the 5/6 school). The details aren’t really considered. Having not seen this type of process before, that was a little shocking. It’s been said many times that “that’s how it’s done.” I guess my advice for us public is to get any specifics of what will be built out of your mind. Yes, there will be another school area at Ecker Hill. Will it be a stand alone building? Will it be added wings to the current building? Will it be purple? No one knows yet. That’s the case with this whole process. Faith… lot’s of faith.
• Nancy Garrison was very focused on educational aspects. It was all about the kids in many of the points she brought up (which was great to see that focus).
• My odds on VCBO, the firm handling planning of this process, also getting the architectural contract for the rebuild (the real money)? Over 80% .
• I didn’t see the School Board thank Rory Murphy for his service as co-head of the Master Planning Committee. He spent over 9 months on this process (for free). Perhaps I just missed the “big thanks.” I hope so. If not, that was a gross oversight.
• They actually had designated space on their plans for a PC CAPS section of the high school. When one of the school board members said she didn’t remember seeing that discussion in any minutes (and that they just renovated the library for PC CAPS), the school superintendent said that it was just general space and could be used for lot of things. This whole PC CAPS building is like a zombie where the public keeps trying to kill it and it comes back to life. My odds of a dedicated space being built and used for PC CAPS (outside of the library): 90%
• Phil Kaplan, the newest board member, gave a good summary of why many members felt they should expand the high school to the west and move Dosier:
  • It consolidates athletics in one are (the east side of campus) and academics on the other
  • Their are more possibilities for future expansion
  • It doesn’t impact transportation as much
• There was a strong focus on putting in turf fields. Jamie Sheetz, Athletics and Activities Director, made a good case that having turf that could be plowed was more important than a fieldhouse (if you couldn’t do both). He said that gets kids outside to practice in the months leading up to spring and reduces wear and tear on Dosier, and use of Basin Rec. It also may get kids home from practice earlier each night.
• Rory Murphy, Co-head of Master Planning, warned that moving Dosier field was an emotional issue and it could cause a lot of people to vote no for the bond on that principle alone. The board decided to risk that by going forward with adding on to the high school to the west and moving Dosier. It will be interesting to see who was right.

Today we are live blogging the school board meeting. This is a discussion between school board members about rebuilding our schools. Click more for the discussion:

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I was having dinner with a friend last week and we were talking about the School Board’s push to realign grades. The district has said they are realigning grades in order to offer full day kindergarten which in turn will help economically disadvantaged kids and our hispanic population catch up with their peers educationally by 3rd grade.

This was discussed initially by the School District’s Master planning Committee and then one day the Superintendent came into a Master Planning Committee and announced it was her decision to make and she was moving forward with full day kindergarten and realigning grades. This in turn caused a cascading effect that led to tearing down a school, moving it across town, adding on to the high school, and potentially rebuilding a campus.

My friend had a good point about this. She asked, “Why are we realigning grades? I explained the district’s rationale about Hispanic and economically disadvantaged kids needing some help. She said, “OK. How many parents of these populations were on the Master Planning Committee?” I responded, “well it was mostly school board, administrators, teachers, the planning company, and two people from the community.” She asked, “Do the two community members have hispanic kids or are they economically disadvantaged?” I said that I didn’t know for sure, but probably not.

She just shook her head.

She has a good point. At best it comes off as a little bit condescending where it’s another case where an outsider assumes to know what’s best for a group of children. At worst, this “oversight” will cause the entire effort (and expense) to be wasted.

What could have been done differently? While I understand the point of master planning is to think long-term, it seems the changes being pushed are generally based on helping an underserved population. So why not include a few representatives on the committee from those populations? What if they told you something critical, that you hadn’t accounted for. What if they would have told you that a majority of kids from those populations live in town and if they have to go all the way to Ecker hill for 5th-8th grade it’s likely they’ll drop out of school. Now, I’m completely making that up, because I don’t have enough knowledge of what the issues are and reasons why these kids are really having trouble. Did the committee have enough information?

And that’s the point. I heard ZERO discussion about these types of issues. It was as if the following simple equation was scientific fact:

All Day Kindergarten for Hispanic Kids = Success

It will be great to have an expanded high school, a new field house, a shiny Treasure Mountain Junior High, better locker rooms, an enhanced gym, and a better theater for Drama class, but have we solved the problem we allegedly set out to solve? I guess we’ll see.

The Park City School Board wrote a Guest Editorial to the Park Record on Saturday. I’m glad they are getting information out. However, I also believe we should be receiving an accurate message from the board. It has become obvious that the School Board desperately desires sweeping changes to our district. They have invested significant time and effort in this endeavor. Any time that happens there are incentives to push forward, whether it makes sense or not.

I have attended the Master Planning Committee meetings since January with a critical eye. That gives me a little different perspective on each of the issues. With that in mind, here are some thoughts (in blue) on each of the board’s statements:

We, the Park City School Board, appreciate the public input we have received in response to the current and future growth of our school district. Our Master Planning Advisory Committee has been meeting for nearly a year to determine a road map for district facilities. Our goal is to build facilities that help realize our vision of innovation and excellence in education. Done properly, and with the community’s support, we believe that Park City can become a top public school district on a national basis.

Most of us have the same goal. We want our schools to provide a quality education for our students. Yet, many of us don’t equate buildings with the quality of education.

Our process is open and transparent. We have held more than 30 public meetings with more than 500 participants from all over the district, while having weekly media coverage on the process.

I always worry when people point out that a process has been open and transparent. It’s usually because they are worried about whether they actually WERE open and transparent. That said, with a few exceptions, this process has been open. Any citizen could attend almost any meeting they wanted. That’s great and what, frankly, we as citizens should expect from all of our government organizations.

Keep in mind, though, that while there may have been 30 public meetings, don’t confuse what happened here with 30 largely attended meetings where the public could provide feedback that caused the the Master Planning Committee to tweak concepts throughout the whole process. There were a handful of community meetings where input was taken but “30” overstates things a bit.

The final master plan will reflect our students’ needs only, with the price tag largely driven by the growth of the district-resident student population. The final recommendation and plan will consider community ideas as well as input from City, County and UDOT experts on traffic impacts. It will consider carefully future growth scenarios. Ultimately, we believe the community will support a direction that puts the educational and safety needs of our children first.

Safety needs? Not sure where that came from. I suppose it sounds good.

As the final plan impacts all PCSD residents, we would like to set straight a few facts about the plan and the planning process:

1. Capacity – As capacity is the biggest driver for building new schools, the public should know that PCSD follows the same state capacity formulas that Utah’s other districts follow.

According to state public policy, our schools are full or almost full. Trailside will have trailers to accommodate students in the 2015-16 school year and Parleys Park may have trailers, depending on final enrollment. Our high school is also full. It is our responsibility to provide suitable space for our students.

This is a little bit of a tough issue to get one’s head around. What I learned through the Master Planning process is that the state has formulas for maximum capacity of our buildings. Yet, the maximum capacity is also driven off of how the school district declares square footage (and for what uses). Then there is the “threshold” amount, which is 90% of the maximum capacity. This threshold number is used for open enrollment which means that once you declare your school at 90% of maximum capacity (the threshold) you no longer have to take out of district students. Take a look at the following image and you’ll get an idea where our schools stand:

Yet, after I posted earlier information about these thresholds, a reader wrote in and asked, “Where did you get 1200 capacity [for the high school]? The master planning doc from 2011 lists PCHS capacity as 1500.” In my mind, that represents the real problem with talks about capacity. What is the real capacity? Has the district set a capacity that is artificially low in order to influence the public with regard to a bond? Have they set a capacity that is artificially low in order to reduce out of district students from attending our high school. Was the number in 2011 wrong? I don’t know. It comes down to trust of the district… and per my previous article on that, you likely know where I stand on that topic.

I also look at all the populations in elementary schools, which is somewhat the catalyst for this plan, and I wonder why they couldn’t just redo the boundaries to fit all day kindergarten in our schools? If you do that, then you are left with deciding whether you just want to rebuild Treasure Mountain Junior High. It’s a much simpler question to get your head around.

Finally, there has been a lot of talk of a bubble of extra students moving through our district. This is temporary. So, we may be building to account for a temporary problem. If you look at the school districts estimates in our elementary schools, after these changes, utilization is low in our elementary schools. This means that our schools will easily be open to outside enrollment, where our district loses a lot of money on each student. With Silver Creek Village and its 1300 units coming online (which are in the South Summit School District) it becomes easy to see that many of these kids would rather go across the street to Trailside than to Kamas or Heber. Thus, our tax dollars are spent outside the district.

2. Opportunity for All Students – There is strong evidence that early education provides an opportunity to assist our most at-risk students to become proficient by grade 3, if it is provided. PCSD has stated that closing the achievement gap is a priority and; therefore, we need to provide room for expanded Pre-K and all day Kindergarten.

Again, it may be possible to change boundaries in order to accommodate this. If that’s not possible, it is likely less expensive to add on to Trailside and Parley’s Park (if necessary). 

3. Building Locations – Scheme 3 was the overwhelmingly preferred option at our community open planning workshops. There were many notations on the plan, which we’ve incorporated into the final draft.

Again, “overwhelmingly preferred option” overstates things. There were 15 votes for “Scheme 3”. I think it is also important to actually understand what these community meetings were and were not.

Meeting 1: The Planner basically showed a slide show of updated AWESOME schools for about an hour and a half. The attendees were “Educated” on what features a new school has. There was about a 15 minute interactive session at the end where people provided input on the “ideal Park City learning environment.” The top answers were personalized learning, engaged learning, and interested learning.

Meeting 2: Attendees of the second meeting broke into groups and made a wish list of what buildings should go where on a map. Effectively they had a whole bunch of cutouts of buildings and put them on a map.

Meeting 3: The planner has taken the ideas from meeting 2 and made them into various “schemes.” Attendees then met and made comments on each of the schemes. This is where scheme 3 became the most popular.

My issues with these three meetings is that the process was effectively led down a hallway, with no doors. The meetings began with a process designed to get community members excited about building new things. Then a map, with preconceived ideas was placed before participants. Meanwhile, School District Master Planning Committee members sat at each table with community members, often guiding the discussion about what should be done. When a community member asked about cost during Meeting 2, because the process seemed pie in the sky, they were told costs would be discussed in meeting 3. They never were. Then we are told “Scheme 3” won, but that was with 15 total votes.

I think what many people think happened was that a group of community members got together, had a free flow of ideas, and then came up with what they thought was best for our community and students. What really happened, seems very different from that (in my opinion).

4. Bussing – All PCSD students currently attend school at the Ecker campus for 6/7th grades. Bussing reflects the geographic reality of our district; and students have been bussed for years. With a new 5/6 located at Ecker, students in town will ride the bus to Ecker for four years and students out of town will ride the bus to Park City High School for four years.

It would be interesting to know what percentage of kids will ride the bus from Park City to Ecker? that probably depends on how long it takes. If it’s anything like transit buses (in SLC), we will see about 6% of students ride. The rest of the kids will be driven to TMJH at Ecker Hill.

5. High School Expansion and Dozier Field Possible Move The Master Planning committee is considering several final alternatives for this necessary construction, including a western expansion that necessitates moving the current Dozier Field and a southward expansion that may cost more. Any expansion needs to make long-term educational and financial sense. We are also considering community and athletic preferences.

This one piqued my interest. The Master Planning Committee recommended no movement of Dosier Field. Why is moving it brought up here? Perhaps the school board wants to show that they can concede some things. Perhaps they are planning on going against the committee’s recommendation and are setting the stage. 

6.Property Values While our goal is innovation and excellence in education and private property values are out of our jurisdiction, we believe it would be difficult or impossible to find an example of a top school district anywhere in the country where property values have not gone up as schools continued to improve.

This is an interesting statement. It is true that research has shown that schools that score higher on standardized tests increase the property values of homes near those schools. Say you were looking to live in the Salt Lake area, you may choose to live in Provo because they have the best high school in the state. Now consider Park City. Right now Park City Schools do well on reading standardized tests. With math and science, the jury is still out. Let’s say we move from 55% competency in math to 75% competency. Does that impact home values here or is it the economy and whether second home owners can afford to pay more to be closer to PCMR? I think at a macro level, Park City schools are considered good (whether because of all the options available, because of better teachers, or its just the prevailing thought). So, does upgrading our schools actually correlate to increased property values. I have a hard time believing that.

Now let’s address the real concerns at hand. People during Master Planning Meetings were concerned with changes proposed at the Kearns campus. They felt the increased traffic, sound, lights, etc. of a “decked out” campus may decrease their property values in Park Meadows and Prospector. If you think about it, the concern is logical. Do you want to live around the carnival or would you rather live in Trailside, Pinebrook, Jeremy, or Silver Creek? It’s not that somehow Park City schools are going to cause the Park City area’s home values to decrease as a whole. It’s that home values could be impacted in some areas (Park Meadows and Prospector) due to these decisions. It’s a different, but important distinction.

Growth and change in our district creates concern and angst for some, but long-term population growth is our reality. There are many considerations for our district and we invite the public to continue to provide input and ask questions as our community moves forward to meet all of our student needs.

We understand that planning for the future requires a significant monetary investment, but also know that ignoring or not planning for growth will end up costing our community much more financially, and will result in a lack of quality learning environments for our students.

We all want what is best for our students. Yet, we also want our leaders to be make good choices with our money. Money that is spent today, may not be available tomorrow. That isn’t a concern as long as our community has both the means and commitment to continually fund increased costs and taxes year after year for schools. Whether we are close to that point or not is a point of debate. It will likely play itself out over the course of the next few years as the bond for this effort goes to the public and the school district needs an extra infusion of money to keep its “rainy day fund” above water.