Submitted by John Arbeeny.
Budget Timeliness and Timelines
Have you seen the proposed CPSD budget briefing that will be presented during a public hearing, 7/11/22, at 5:00 PM? That’s because it hasn’t been released to the very public that is supposed to be commenting upon it during the budget public hearing! How many of the public participated in previous budget meetings? Zero? How’s that for planning? And how can you expect the CPSD Board to vote to pass the budget in its final form on 7/11/22 that was only briefed to them at the Board workshop on 6/22/22? I would have thought the expenditure of $254,000,000 in tax payer funding would have required a bit more deliberation.
CPSD Board agenda items published at the last minute with scant detail, like this budget public hearing, are far too common and stifle community involvement in District business. These agenda items often come so late (Friday before Monday Board meeting) that Board members barely have time to read, research and prepare an intelligent response to Superintendent and administration directives and recommendations and just forget about the public!
This has to change NOW. When you design a system to fail, which all but eliminates public participation while creating a rubber stamp Board, then indeed it will succeed at failing. The budget hearing is just the latest example.
But there’s more to take issue with than just the untimely and cryptic scheduling of the budget hearing: it’s the budget briefing and budget itself that are terribly flawed.
Budget Isolation From Other Accountability Board Goals
In his briefing on Academic Competence during the Board workshop on 6/22/22, Deputy Superintendent Laubach showed the Accountability for Board Goals consisting of #1 Student Growth/Achievement, #2 Parent and Community Engagement, #3 Communications with Stakeholders, #4 Supportive Learning Environment for Students, #5 Recruitment, Retention and Professional Development. These 5 were then pared down to just #1, #2, #3, with no discussion of either #4 or #5 as though they have no impact upon achievement of Goal #1 Student Growth/Achievement. Conspicuously absent from both lists was #6 Fiscal Responsibilities of which the budget is a key component. Why was #6 missing completely? Does it not have a major influence upon achievement of Goal #1 Student Growth and potential impact on Goals #2 through #5?
Apparently not so according to Superintendent and administration: the budget seems to exist in a vacuum apart from the other Goals. Yet budgets aren’t just about spending or accounting for money; they are about accomplishing goals and the most significant goal of any school district is Goal #1 Student Growth/Achievement. To accomplish those goals the goals must be stated specifically with respect to the budget otherwise there is no way to judge accountability for goal accomplishment beyond just accounting for the expenditure of funds.
Budget Lack of Specificity
This budget briefing (and I suspect budget itself) is flawed because it is devoid of any specificity regarding goals and specific budget items tasked for their accomplishment. For instance, not once is a specific school with special needs or program designed to meet that need mentioned in the budget briefing. There’s nothing here except sterile numbers without any context of what they represent beyond the current fund balance, income, expenditures and remaining balance. What is there for the public or Board members to comment on? Is a $254,000,000 budget too much, too little, “just right” or perhaps irrelevant? There’s no way to judge.
Budgets need specificity in the form of different funds for different purposes and a detailed list of each of those proposed projects and goals that these lines of expenditure seek to address. Without that context, the budget is just a bunch of numbers. That context is missing entirely from the budget briefing: there is zero specificity. If you want to see specificity, go to the City of Lakewood budget which is far smaller but rich in specifics. This level of specificity allows the Board to know how much is being spent by whom, when on what and why and make the necessary adjustments to fit the Board’s priorities rather than leaving that in the Superintendent and administration to decide.
Budget Review and Extended Horizon
This budget briefing lacks a discussion of the District’s educational problems and goals as the context within which the budget exists. It lacks a strategic plan that stretches beyond just 2023 as per the current 2018-2023 Action Plan, the horizon of which is fast approaching. Budgets today will have an impact on the future but only if that horizon is extended out every year rather than waiting for it to arrive without any planning beyond.
By any measures 2018-2022 has been an academic disappointment for the District yet there hasn’t been any real planning for 2023 and beyond. I guess they’ll figure it out in 18 months. Indeed the Superintendent’s contract negotiations don’t wait until the contract it about to expire. Rather, it is a moving horizon that constantly extends 2 years into the future. So it should be with the District’s academic Action Plan: updated annually and extended 5 years into the future annually. That’s the only way to plan for the future today before the future arrives tomorrow.
Budget Strategic Goals by Fund by School
Let me suggest that there should be three strategic goals that are addressed by the budget that head the District in the right direction.
#1 Short term academic triage. Strategic doesn’t always mean years ahead. Sometimes it means absolutely right now and fast! The strategic goal of triage is to stop the “bleeding” now to save a life so that future near/mid-term intervention and long term remediation can occur. Without triage, you lose the patient now and nothing else matters thereafter. The District faces several schools that are bleeding to death educationally and have been in some cases for years. This must be addressed immediately in this budget.
Here are schools requiring immediate triage and their ranking percentile and trend between 2018 – 2021:
- Tyee Park Elementary: 1.4 Down
- Park Lodge Elementary: 2.4 Down
- 4 Heros Elementary: 5.1 Down
- Lakeview Elementary: 8.3 Down
- Tillicum Elementary: 10.3 Unchanged
- Lochburn Middle: 4.3 Unchanged
- Clover Park High: 5.9 Down
#2 Mid-term COVID academic recovery. There are several schools that once had academic achievement rankings that were above that of the District (today ranked 29.3 percentile). These schools took a serious hit academically during COVID. Recovery of these schools will probably take up to 3 years (so stated by Board President Pearson during the 23 June 2022 Board Workshop) to get back to their previous rankings. They’ve done it in the past and they must be supported to do it in the future.
Here are schools requiring mid–term COVID academic recovery, their ranking percentile, and ranking drop between 2018 – 2021:
- Lake Louise Elementary: 16.4 Down from 43.3
- Evergreen Elementary: 22.4 Down from 44.8
- Hillside Elementary: 22.4 Down from 32.4
- Idlewild Elementary: 35.6 Down from 45.9
- Hudtloff Middle: 12.5 Down from 37.8
#3 Long term academic advancement. “A rising tide raises all boats”. Despite the academic “bleeding” and COVID impact academically, several schools remained above the District’s ranking, bucked the trend academically and improved significantly. These schools are the “tide” that can be the basis for raising all schools’ academic standing. These schools should be in the spotlight as examples of how to get it done despite adversity. The objective must be to incorporate those successful methodologies throughout the District and thus raise academic achievement for all its schools and students.
CPSD has been on a downward slope academically for the last 10 years and it isn’t going to improve overnight unless there is a concerted effort to turn the trend around in the immediate, mid-term and long term view. That requires a budget that is tailored to address each of these strategic goals with a level of specificity that permits the Board to assess the budget’s applicability and viability with respect to Board policy and goals and allow the public to comment upon the budget intelligently. After all, the public is paying for it and deserves to know exactly what it’s getting for its money.
To do anything less is a dereliction of responsibility and accountability we expect from our Board.
As stated, “We” doesn’t mean every person in the Clover Park School District supports your perspectives and conclusions.
I voted for individuals to lead and manage specific bureaucracies, governments, or both. I trust that they will do what is needed to accomplish balance within the complexities of human microcasms. If they do, they will gain my support in the next election. If they don’t, they won’t get my vote.
At points in life, individuals or groups roll the dice to take chances on something or someone.
TRUST but VERIFY…….President Ronald Reagan. Our elected officials and their decisions shouldn’t be just a “roll of the dice”. If you vote and then think that’s the end of your responsibility you may be very disappointed. This Board has not done its homework with the $250,000,000+ budget. It’s your money, half of which comes from your property taxes. I’d expect more interest both financially and educationally yet only one person showed up for the budget public hearing at 5PM followed immediately by a vote during the regular meeting to pass it. How’s that taking into consideration comments from the public? It isn’t. It’s the Board’s job to motivate the public to become involved in District business, to include the budget. That’s not happening. Quite the opposite: the entire process is designed to remove the public from active participation.
I’m not involved in the inner-workings of our public school systems, but I do pay attention to the actions of those who emerge from it.
We have a ruling class that seeks to preserve itself by keeping others confused about such things as, “What is a woman?”
This is not critical theory or thinking, it is fantasy.
Until we can come to agreement on something as basic as that, we are wasting each other’s time.
It’s no wonder the fantasy-enthusiasts want to throw all possessions into a big pot to share “equitably”.
Their alternative would be starvation.
Well – what is a woman is not a simple question as you and some GOP members of Congress seem to think. There are a number of ways to define a person’s sex: their outer genatalia; their chromosomes, e.g. XX, XO, XXX, XY, XXY, XYY; androgen insensitivity syndrome; penis at 12 syndrome; and identity. It’s biology as Justice Katenji Jackson stated.
What has this got to do with the subject at hand? Clover Park School District budget? But as long as you want to go there here’s my take on the definition of a woman.
Your position is yet another case of letting the exception rule rather than rule by exception. This is always government’s (and typically progressive’s) approach to “problem” solving. Pick the exception, for instance a criminal using a gun, and apply a “solution” to all gun owners with a draconian measure to outlaw guns. Ironically this does nothing to actually solve the real problem which isn’t guns but rather criminals. However it does expand government (and progressive) control over a much much larger segment of the population without any real attempt to solve the problem. It’s all about POWER and CONTROL!
So it is with the definition of a “woman”. The rule is a woman is any person with XX chromosomes; the exception, a tiny percentage, are those with “chromosomes…… XO, XXX, XY, XXY, XYY; androgen insensitivity syndrome; penis at 12 syndrome; and identity.” Thus the rule of XX chromosomes stands while these other examples are just exceptions to the rule, not the definition of the rule.
When you make the exceptions the rule you are in for a very confusing life. There is always some variation or exception that can be found. To apply that as the standard by which to judge the rest of reality if a form of insanity.
Several other points were raised during the Budget Public Hearing (5PM) and following Board regular meeting (6PM).
During the staff budget brief as introduction to the Public Hearing a glaring disconnect between budget and Accountability Goals and Action Plan was observed. The budget for 2023 was projected in subsequent years out to 2026. Yet the Accountability Goals and Action Plan expires in 2023. This begs the question of how can the Superintendent project a budget out 4+ years when the academic action plan expires next year? I suppose the budget is on “autopilot” independent of any academic goals there might be for the District. This just further confirms that when it comes to spending money academics don’t really matter. And you wonder why CPSD is at 29 percentile academically State wide among all Districts.
Director Anderson noted that having a vote on the budget so soon after the Public Hearing did not give the Board adequate time to consider the issues raised by the public. Unfortunately the Public Hearing has become just a box for the Board and Superintendent to check off and has no bearing at all on Board decisions. Yet there was no rush to pass the budget on 11 July 2022 because it is not due to the State until 31 August 2022. Despite Director Anderson’s common sense motion to delay passage of the budget until further study (seconded by Director Wagemann) the motion was defeated 3-2 by Directors Pearson, Jacobs and Veliz. Getting the budget done fast and poorly was more important to them than taking the time to get it done right.
Director Pearson stated that the CPSD budget was just like budgets passed by other school districts. Apparently she does not appreciate that she was not elected to other school district Boards. CPSD has its own unique set of challenges to include diverse population and huge disparity in academic achievement between its schools. What might be an acceptable budget process for Bellevue with far less diversity and outstanding academics (99%+ vs. 29% for CPSD) is not necessarily the budgeting model that CPSD should follow.
Superintendent Banner stated that CPSD has followed all the State requirements and RCWs for budgeting. Apparently he does not appreciate that the District can follow the RCWs while being even more specific in its budgeting process to account for the local District environment and specific Board guidance. If local Districts didn’t have the latitude to tailor State level guidance to fit local needs then there wouldn’t be any need for local school districts: just run them all from Olympia. The result is an administrative budget not an educational budget.
This budget may have passed 3-2 over the well stated objections of Directors Anderson and Wagemann but the message has been sent. This Board and Superintendent in the future will not be able to get away any longer by “phoning it in” on future budgets. They will have to become personally involved and insist that well established short, mid and long term educational goals be the bases for where our money is spent. They will be held responsible by the taxpaying public for their choices.