Tag Archives: school board

Art Johnston Prevails

The exhausting saga of the attempt to remove Art Johnston from the ISD 709 School Board is finally lurching toward conclusion. It was a miserable one to follow, with an unsympathetic protagonist pitted against a vindictive, bumbling board. In the end, the Board majority found either its conscience or its sanity, and withdrew the attempt to remove the eternal thorn in its side. The bringers of the suit appeared resigned; Chair Judy Seliga-Punyko called it “frustrating” that Johnston had filed a lawsuit, while Annie Harala said the effort to remove him had been the right idea at the start, but became a “distraction.” Yes, if only Johnston had just rolled over and accepted his fate like a good little boy. It’s not like he ever fought back before, right? What on earth did they expect?

At the risk of saying I-told-you-so, this is what I wrote immediately after the incident last June:

[T]his seems like a needless distraction, and one that only empowers Member Johnston’s narrative of victimhood at the hands of the rest of the Board. What’s laughable about all of this, really, is Member Johnston’s powerlessness; sure, he can cause a stink and badger people with his questions, but when it comes to actual policy influence, his achievements are minimal. The investigation gives him a soapbox to gain more attention, [and] drags out old fights in the negative PR…”

Yup.

There will probably be one more chance for the Board to demonstrate less maturity than its students next week. The majority will move to censure Johnston in what could have been a defensible move at the time of the incident, but eleven months on, it merely looks like grubbing for a few points of extra credit after failing the exam. Johnston will again do his panicky eight-year-old impression, moaning about the bullies—even he has been poisoned by the obnoxious education-speak and victimization game that makes this comparison of the Board to a playground all too easy—and will likely fit in his victory lap. The censure either will or won’t happen, and everyone’s lives will somehow go on, no matter what. After that, there are some loose ends to tie up, most notably the financing of Johnston’s defense, and perhaps some lingering questions about his partner’s status, but the crusade is largely over now.

With any luck, the end of this case will be the last gasp of the Red Plan Wars. Yes, its legacy will linger, and no doubt a few hangers-on will continue to belabor old points. This inconclusive end seems a fitting coda for all of the needless division of the past decade. The leaders of the anti-Johnston campaign appear exhausted; I’d be surprised if Bill Westholm has the energy for another campaign, and Mike Miernicki has already announced he will not seek a second term. Miernicki blamed the negativity for his exit, though self-awareness of his own role in fostering such negativity appears lacking. His story has been a sad one to watch, a case of an otherwise likable man totally out of his element and unable to handle any pushback. Yes, Mern, the world would be a happier place if it were more like your ideal one, but that simply isn’t the case, and we all must adjust to reality.

Seliga-Punyko probably comes out looking the worst of anyone here after her relentless campaign came up short, and her lame attempt to fault the costs of Johnston’s lawsuit for failing to see his removal through is the ultimate white flag. It was a poor choice on the part of the Board to make such an imperious and divisive figure its chair, and I can only hope that some of the Board’s junior members realize they have been taken for a distracting ride by the Board’s mother hen over the past year. Her political future will be interesting to watch. Superintendent Bill Gronseth, after flirting with an escape from all the madness, is now committed to Duluth for the long-term. He has been too much of a passenger in this whole affair in his refusal to exercise any authority, but that does give him a chance to be the one who now collects the pieces and gets people to move on. The Board is in need of some leadership out of its Superintendent.

I am most curious to see how the victorious minority now responds. It is a real win for Johnston and Harry Welty; perhaps the first of any substance they can actually claim in their sometimes noble and often floundering attempts to stand up to the overpowering majority. If they can be magnanimous after this success and return discussion to the pressing issues facing the district—class size, charter school questions, traffic concerns, and so on—without belaboring old grievances too much, they’ll be in great position to seem like the winners of this whole mess, and the momentum could carry them into the November elections. If bitterness over their treatment over the past months rules the day, then we can expect more of the same, and their victory over this past week will be nothing but a hollow settling of personal scores. They’ll spin a narrative in which they’re the defenders of liberty or some such thing, hiding the fact that they have so far been mediocre and largely ineffective legislators. Being a gadfly is all well and good, but anyone who thinks that this is an end unto itself completely misunderstands what Socrates was up to.

Ideally, when the censure motion comes, someone will have the guts to stand up and say that it’s time to drop all of this and move on. Ideally, the Board will then do exactly that. They won’t be reconciled, no, but they’ll at least re-emphasize the fact that they have a mission that is higher than their own petty infighting. But, then, expecting the high road out of people on the ISD 709 Board hasn’t been a winning proposition of late. Perchance to dream.

October Duluth News Roundup

A quick tour of stuff that I’m following from afar in Duluth this month:

Latest Developments (Pun Intended)

The big news this week was of a new development planned at the corner of 21st Avenue East and London Road, a large apartment complex that caters to young professionals. Mixed-use apartments warm my urban planning heart, and it will be a welcome change for an otherwise rather bland, suburban-like stretch. Still, I doubt it will go up in its currently planned form: it seems awfully large for that spot, and the traffic in that area is already a bit stressed at times. I will also continue my grumbling about the boxy, cookie-cutter contemporary apartment buildings: is a little detail or nuance too much to ask for? (Perhaps I just spend too much time in Uptown Minneapolis these days, which is overflowing with such structures.) The last potential obstacle is the likely necessity of tax-increment financing to fund the thing, but I can certainly see it succeeding.

Between this new project and BlueStone, plus plans for the Lester Park Golf Course apparently working their way toward the sort of 18-holes-plus-new-houses compromise I’d hoped for, lots of the remaining developable urban space on the east side is being snapped up. Market forces (well, the market plus TIF) are clearly driving things here, though there’s some new stuff happening out west, too. The Lakewalk has been extended to Lincoln Park, and visioning events for the St. Louis River corridor are under way in earnest. There’s cause for a lot of excitement with all of this new development energy, though I’m sure there will be some clashes along the way, too.

The Mayoral Marathon Gets Under Way!

Let the succession fun begin! Northland News Center put out a long list of people who might join Howie Hanson as potential successors to Don Ness in next year’s election. It’s a very deep list, and is a who’s-who of Duluth politics. I’ll offer a handful of comments on most of them here:

Yvonne Prettner-Solon, should she enter the race, would be an obvious force to be reckoned with. The outgoing Lieutenant Governor would be the only person in the race with the status to escape Ness’s shadow. That hardly guarantees a win, and she will presumably have some re-connecting to do after four years in St. Paul. She will have to adjust to local-level administration, which is a different animal from her state legislature and governor’s mansion experience. Still, no one is better-positioned to harness the full power of the local DFL machine, if she does it right.

Among other DFLers, Emily Larson seems the best-positioned to pick up the Ness mantel. She’s similar to Ness in that she is fairly young and an upbeat, happy face for Duluth. She usually avoids controversial positions (for good or ill), and is a tireless worker. A vote for Larson would likely be a vote for continuity—and, given Ness’s success, that would put her among the frontrunners. West side state representative Erik Simonson, on the other hand, represents the traditional labor bastion of the DFL. His candidacy would test the staying power of labor in a city that is edging away from that old industrial identity, but he could also muster a broader coalition.

The list goes on. Roger Reinert has proven effective in the state senator, though I’m not sure he has the dynamism to surpass Prettner-Solon or Larson in a primary. Jennifer Julsrud is another prominent name who is playing coy so far; she has the potential to be a formidable politician, though she could perhaps use a bit more polishing on the City Council. Daniel Fanning joins Larson in the liberal optimist club, but does not have her elected experience, and someone coming straight out of Ness’s inner circle may be a bit too close for comfort. The same could be said for CAO Dave Montgomery, who is not a Duluth resident anyway. I’m not sure I see a road for Jeff Anderson out of this crowded field, either. There will be a lot of jockeying in the coming months.

Outside of the DFL, by far the most intriguing name is Chris Dahlberg. When Howie Hanson leapt into the race, I said there’s a serious opening for a west-side, fiscally conservative candidate that Hanson did not quite fill; Dahlberg might just be that candidate. The St. Louis County Commissioner, despite a lack of statewide exposure, came very close to sneaking in and stealing the Republican Party endorsement to run against Al Franken in this fall’s Senate race. His campaign for Senate was pretty much boilerplate conservatism, but that’s necessary to win a Republican primary; one would presume he knows he needs a bit more than that to win in Duluth. If he can manage a message that caters to Duluth’s particularities—a big if—he has a shot. Jim Stauber, on the other hand, is an also-ran at this point in his career.

It Wouldn’t Be a Duluth Update without Me Grumbling About the School Board

I don’t particularly feel like enduring the latest meeting, leaving me with two contradictory accounts. Jana Hollingsworth, who has covered these meetings with enviable detachment in the News Tribune, comes down pretty hard on Art Johnston for an exchange between him and HR Director Tim Sworsky. Harry Welty, on the other hand, puts all the blame on Sworsky for inciting the incident over Johnston’s marital status. I don’t see much room for anyone to claim moral high ground here. Whatever the merits, Johnston’s strong reaction only fuels the image his accusers would like to paint of him: a loose cannon, perhaps prone to irrational or even violent outbursts. Maybe that’s what Sworsky wanted when he picked at this scab, though in School Board affairs, I usually find it easier to suspect tone-deafness than genuine malice. Harry rails against the supposed lead witness against Ms. Bushey, but he seems to have already convicted this woman for an unrelated incident some ten years ago. (In general I enjoy reading Harry’s assessments of people, but once he’s formed an opinion on them, it seems like he’s unlikely to budge, no matter the evidence.) Meanwhile, the school district has yet to receive a single bill from the lawyer investigating Johnston’s alleged abuses. The saga goes on.

In case the ten billion TV attack ads relentlessly insulting your intelligence weren’t enough to remind you, we do have an election in just over a week. State and national elections are not my primary focus on here, so I won’t be writing about them half as much as I did about local ones last year. (For the most part, I endorse analysis coming from Aaron Brown.) I will, however, venture to explain why I don’t pay excess attention to national politics, and will offer up a few comments once all the votes are in. Stay tuned.

Hey Duluth Politicians, I’m Still Paying Attention

Yes, Duluth, I’m still paying attention to you, even from afar. Here are a few thoughts on two issues that have been in the news back home recently.

The Proposed Lester Park Golf Course Development

One of the more interesting debates to surface has been about the fate of the Lester Park Golf Course (LPGC), the public course on the far east side for which the city has started fielding proposals from developers. The LPGC has operated at a loss in recent years, and with its superb views of Lake Superior and relatively undeveloped environs, it sits on an attractive piece of real estate. But this decision has, of course, spurred some backlash, with local historian Tony Dierckins rallying the troops in a series of posts over on Zenith City Online. (History of the course here, pointed critiques here.)

Before we get into the merits of this particular plan, Tony makes one point that is especially bothersome when he floats the notion that this somehow detracts from the plan to revitalize the west side. This is the sort of attitude that reinforces the east-west divide, turning development into a zero-sum game. There is plenty of room for development on both sides of Duluth; nothing should be off the table simply because it is on a certain side of the city. Imposing some sort of moratorium on east side development so the west side can play catch-up would be a heavy-handed tool that would likely just leave us with less of anything in the end. Closing LPGC would actually eliminate an east side amenity, and if (if!) it is indeed a profitable move, could free up some cash for the west side. Signs of flexibility and openness to creative ideas would be a positive for the city as a whole, and could improve the overall development climate. Though Duluthians should be proud that their city tends to stop and think before rushing to throw up every new plan placed before it in shiny wrapping, this mindset is exactly what gets Duluth a reputation for being stuck in the mud when it comes to development. There’s room for many different options.

I’m also not entirely sold on a number of his other defenses of LPGC. Yes, it’s public, and gives green access to golfers who can’t afford Northland or Ridgeview Country Clubs. But it’s also not a free amenity open to anyone, and calling a golf course ‘nature’ or an opportunity for serious physical activity is something of a stretch, especially in a city like Duluth. Golf courses are odd ducks in the planning world: they’re recreational, but very specific in purpose, and take up a lot of land area. Tony gives a massive job loss number, but it’s worth noting that many of them are seasonal and not exactly careers, such as caddying. These jobs are great for kids starting work and a few seasoned pros, of course, but it’s not comparable to closing a factory.

Tony’s financial numbers seem fishy at best. It’s certainly not the government’s job to subsidize golf at whatever cost, and if the market’s not there, the local golf community either needs to pony up or face reality. It may be a bit premature to throw LPGC under the bus—Tony does have a not-so-very-old quote from CAO Montgomery dismissing any financial concerns about the courses that needs an explanation—but things do need to add up here. Tony has a pretty clear personal interest in LPGC, and while there’s nothing wrong with that—I’d be putting out some prolific venting if the city, say, tried to do away with Fryberger Arena—let’s not pretend he’s laying out these facts without a clear agenda.

All of that said, barring an offer the city can’t refuse, I do think it would be shortsighted to just shut the place down and put up a new, strictly residential subdivision. Overcrowding at the Enger course would be a serious issue, as would the loss of a venue for major charitable events. Golf does have genuine cultural value, and generates some tourism. Weather might have played a role in recent financial struggles, and LPGC is also sadly burdened by the hopelessly arcane liquor sales ban that lives on in Lakeside. The public needs to learn a lot more about the course’s operations before it accepts that it just has to go.

The good news is that some of the proposals apparently do not involve the total loss of the golf course. Preserving 18 holes while allowing for some modest development might prove a sensible compromise. Ideally, any redevelopment will maintain some parkland and public access to the excellent views along LPGC, no matter what fate befalls the course. The ideal plan would also probably bring some space for business along with it, instead of isolating a group of houses out on a cul-du-sac off Lester River Road. I’m intrigued to see what comes out of this. Tell me more.

September School Board Meeting

Oh, yeah, that thing. I’m afraid it still exists, and is just as absurd as ever. I made it about halfway through the Youtube video before giving up. It started off as usual, with Members Johnston and Welty doing lots of grandstanding for entirely understandable reasons, as they still have not been given any clear path to get anything on the Board’s agenda. Chair Miernicki continues to be the greatest PR operation the minority could have dreamed of on their behalf, persistently bumbling through everything.

At one point, Member Johnston said that Chair Miernicki had told him that he was “scared” of him in an email, which is telling. Many adjectives could be applied to Member Johnston, a number of them not very nice, but “scary” is not really one of them. Years of battles have left the majority paranoid about the man, and even his more mundane critiques give rise to defensiveness. Everyone is so well-trained at taking those who they do not agree with in bad faith.

This fear of minority critiques came out later in the meeting, when Member Harala lost her cool and snapped at Member Welty for his (real, but fairly mundane) grandstanding on minority students’ poor test scores. So much for the one person on the majority who I thought was making a concerted effort to see things from the other side. Predictably, this sent Member Johnston off the rails with accusations of harassment and lack of care for minorities, in turn sending Chair Miernicki into justified indignance. After that bit of ugliness, I stopped watching. Member Johnston said the Board has done nothing for underserved groups, but this is patently false. Whatever one thinks of it, the Laura MacArthur curriculum flap is obviously an effort to cater directly to groups that need extra help in school, and from my time there onward, there has been a very concerted effort on the part of the East administration to directly engage with minority students. (In fact, there were even a few jokes in poor taste about how this was the only thing the administration cared about.) I doubt East is unique there. Just because it isn’t being announced with trumpets doesn’t mean it isn’t getting done. Its efficacy may be another story, though, and everyone seemed to be in violent agreement that this is a conversation worth having.

The trouble is that the conversation will likely go in the exact same direction. Members Welty and (especially) Johnston are full of depressing facts but short on solutions, in turn leading to defensiveness and qualifications from the rest. I’m all for the accurate reporting of the statistics, but just reading off the numbers does little to advance the conversation. Stupid as it may be, Members Johnston and Welty may have to cater to their colleagues’ fragile sensibilities if they really do want to have this conversation (which they already do somewhat with a lot of qualification), and some brevity might do them a world of good, too. Unfortunately, the success of Laura MacArthur may be leading some on the Board to believe that this is an easy problem to solve. Member Welty says he won’t be happy with mere incremental success, and the Board should obviously aim to do all it can, but in the end, I’d be relieved with some slow, steady progress. While he may just have been in a state after Member Harala’s outburst, Member Johnston’s suggestion that the achievement gap exists because people aren’t trying is just his bad faith reading of people he does not like. This is a brutally hard issue to fix.

The same could be said of the east-west divide, which also came up in relation to test scores after everyone got all of their hating on testing and No Child Left Behind out of the way. (If there’s one thing that seems to unite everyone in the room, and can even get Chair Miernicki to praise some of Marcia Stromgren’s words, it’s a hatred of tests.) The concerns about equity between East and Denfeld came up again, and while I’ve already said plenty on that, I’ll again point out what a bind the District is in as it tries to correct for some of these issues. The new curriculum director has his work cut out for him, though as I suggested in that past post, there are some creative ways to offer greater equity while also working within reality.

I’m not going to defend the Board’s existing efforts fully, though, and at their worst, some Members do sound like patronizing teachers when they acknowledge problems but do not share any further details, or dismiss them in facile ways. (See Chair Miernicki’s suggestion that, because something appears in the curriculum guide, this must automatically mean there is equal access to classes at both high schools. Please. And what is this nonsense about a full year of lifeskills—by far the most useless class I had in ISD 709, though that was perhaps related to the teacher—instead of offering Spanish at Lincoln Park?) It’s all part of the culture of secrecy inside the District. It may not look like it exists from inside the bubble, but it does, and it’s glaring. Read this DNT op ed and some of Harry’s correspondents for more details.

The public speaker session included Linda Puglisi’s jarring story of a pool rescue, once again showing the horrors of teachers trying to do the best they can with large class sizes. Another speaker hammered this theme home when discussing Lester Park, and I’ve heard similar stories out of Congdon. Not coincidentally, these schools are on the east side; in addition to serving the area of the city with the most young people, they are the ones families are trying to transfer into, often blackmailing the District with threats of withdrawal if they don’t get their way. Even so, class sizes are still a problem, despite a few added teachers here and there thanks to the levy money. This Board has some work to do, and it needs to do more than “have conversations”–though in some cases, it isn’t even doing that.

On that happy note, I’ll cut myself off. Writing about Duluth politics is cathartic. I miss it, in a twisted sort of way.

Reaching Zen: Duluth School Board Notes, 8/19/14

On Tuesday night, I attended my final ISD 709 School Board meeting before heading south to Minneapolis. I had a rant prepped for the citizen speaker session, but after a good day I was feeling Zen about it all and decided that it would be hypocritical to belabor my points in lashing out at Board Members for belaboring their points. At a certain point the vitriol in the room just becomes tiresome, and I didn’t want to cross that line. I’m in a good enough place that I don’t need that catharsis.

It took 38 minutes to approve the agenda at this meeting, which tells you everything you need to know about it. Member Welty tried to make two amendments to the agenda, the first of which demanded a thorough review of the soft costs of the Red Plan, and the second of which sought to insure that the District would pay any legal costs incurred by a Board Member in the event that they are investigated and cleared of any wrongdoing. I won’t rehash all of the painful exchanges, but I will offer a few conclusions on an all-too-familiar night in the Board Room:

This Board operates under a tyranny of the majority. It just does. They refuse to let Members Johnston and Welty get anything on the agenda at all. This doesn’t give the minority free reign to use any guerrilla tactic they like, but it does make their reactions more understandable, even if they don’t serve any constructive end. The stonewalling of any questions also breeds resentment, and despite the stated aims of the majority of moving past the Red Plan debate, it is a sure way to make sure the aggrieved parties do not drop their case. It’s a bad move, both for the Board’s short-term image and its long-term aims of moving past the Red Plan. They leave Member Welty, a reasonable man, with the undesirable options of submission or relentless protest.

The bunker mentality in the majority reigns supreme. It would be so much easier for the majority to fork over the information Members Welty and Johnston want, then put it all to rest. Admittedly, I am a bit skeptical of Member Johnston’s claim that he’d just let things rest if they had the conversation before voting his proposals down; his track record there is against him, and this may be why some don’t want to have these discussions. There is a lot of posturing and point-proving going on here that may or may not serve any constructive purpose, and the strict emphasis on soft costs is curious. Still, it’s a lot easier to claim the high ground when one does make a genuine effort to be reasonable. Excepting Member Harala and, on one or two occasions, Member Loeffler-Kemp, the Board’s majority has not done that.

Despite one claim by Member Welty, I don’t think the Board’s actions are illegal. They’re allowed to come up with their own ways for putting things on the agenda. (The same could be said for the decision to impose the Red Plan without a vote way back when.) It’s just a poor PR move for them to act in the way they do, and is certainly not in the spirit of a cohesive democracy.

On a broader level, the lack of transparency is disappointing, and pervades the administration beyond the complaints of two dissident Board Members. Try being a journalist looking for some pretty straightforward information ISD 709. (No, I’m not talking about Loren Martell.) Even Superintendent Gronseth’s updates often sound like canned press releases—perhaps because he is, indeed, reading straight from a canned press release. The attempt to control the narrative is way too heavy-handed.

Having the Board pay Member Johnston’s legal fees was never going to fly. It’s a noble idea, but it just isn’t done. From my rudimentary research, there is some possibility that Member Johnston could recoup some of the costs if exonerated, but that would require further legal proceedings. In the case of the Clintons’ Whitewater investigation, for example, a federal court ruled that there was a good chance the charges against them would have come up with or without the role of government representatives in bringing about the charges, and they were thus on the hook for the bill. The proposal brought forward by Member Welty was far too vague, and he needs some serious legal consultation if he wants to get a more complex version that actually would work, if that’s even possible.

Chair Miernicki is in over his head. This meeting was a painful display of inept procedure, with the Chair quickly growing flustered by the protests of Members Welty and Johnston. It is tough to watch an otherwise jolly and easygoing man get flummoxed by the criticism directed his way, and when the minority presses his points, he comes across like a man waving his arms wildly at a cloud of gnats. Given the added fact of his involvement in the case against Member Johnston, I think he should resign his chairmanship. The position would be passed to Member Westholm, who agrees with Chair Miernicki on everything policy-wise, but has yet to ever lose his calm in a meeting. This would be beneficial for the Board as a whole.

Given the persistent intransigence of Member Johnston, I admit this is a hard job to hold. In retrospect, I may have been overly harsh on Tom Kasper’s attempt to balance everything. He did a much better job of choosing his battles with Member Johnston, and because of that he usually held the high ground when they had their disputes. The same cannot be said of Chair Miernicki. He’s hurting his own case, and continues to do so at every meeting.

What’s going on at Laura MacArthur?

For a third time, an update from Laura MacArthur Elementary principal Nathan Glockle was on the Education Committee docket. For a third time, it was tabled, ostensibly because Mr. Glockle could not make the meeting. One conflict is understandable; three starts to get a little suspicious. There were legitimate concerns about the curriculum being offered at Laura Mac, and now the Board will not get an update before the start of the new school year. That’s disappointing.

For all the craziness in the Board Room, there’s a lot to be proud of in ISD 709.

I’ve noted this before, but it’s worth emphasizing again: there’s a giant disconnect between the cattiness in the Board room and the reality in much of the District. It hired 55 new teachers for this coming year. (Even with retirements and such, that’s a lot.) As usual, Member Harala brought enthusiasm to the Education Committee report, plugging great things like Head Start expansion and community gardens. Local philanthropy for the schools remains excellent. New policies on bullying, harassment, and violence went into effect; while there are some fine points there to be ironed out in each of them (for example, why has the Board requested reports on all harassment cases, but not on incidents of violence?), but this is important for accountability and building better school environments. Everyone enjoyed the presentation they’d received from the East and Denfeld robotics teams, with Member Welty in particular waxing over the bridging of the east-west divide done by the students involved. I could go on and on. These positive developments don’t necessarily make up for large class sizes and cut courses and test score gaps, but that strong civic culture will keep ISD 709 strong, no matter what lunacy the Board Members pursue. Schools are about more than test scores, and in most (though certainly not all) of those intangible categories, ISD 709 is exemplary.

***

And so I bid the School Board farewell, at least for now. Thanks to the three Board members who are my loyal readers. It’s probably not coincidental that you three are, in my mind, the most objective on the Board, and the most likely to guide it into a post-Red Plan era. My following among the Board Members was much smaller than my following among the City Councilors (which, without over-inflating my own role, is rather telling when it comes to Board members’ openness and willingness to engage citizens), but at least there was something, and I thank you for that. Thanks also to Jana Hollingsworth, my News Tribune partner in crime; I admire your ability to endure these meetings for years on end while remaining objective, and I hope I’ve given you a good outlet for some of those reactions that you can’t fit within the sometimes narrow lines of contemporary print journalism.

I’m not sure my alma mater is in a better place than it was when I left it six years ago, but thanks to some lurching progress in recent years, it’s not demonstrably worse either, and the bar was pretty high to begin with. For all the Board room madness I’m still very proud of it, and I’ll still be back to visit when time allows. Hockey season is just around the corner, isn’t it? In the meantime, I’ll leave it with the words of guest speaker Cassandra Dahnke of the Institute for Civility in Government. They’ve been said before, but they are excellent advice for the Board members: “You don’t want to be a community that falls apart because you can’t talk to each other.” Daunting as it may be, it is in the interests of both sides to come to one another in good faith, and hopefully the few that do so can build some sort of coalition. Perchance to dream.

Melodrama in the Board Room Bubble: ISD 709 Notes, 7/15/14

When I was at Georgetown, we students made frequent use of the term “Georgetown Bubble.” Crazy as it may seem, many Hoyas don’t take much advantage of DC; it was very easy to get so caught up in campus life, with heaps of homework and extracurriculars and all of the shopping (and partying) one could ever desire within a few blocks of the front gates. The Georgetown Bubble had a tendency to make small things seem big: campus protests became people’s raison d’etre, and one could practically feel the stress in the air in the library; at the same time, people were often ignorant of the DC beyond them, and all that it encompassed.

The Georgetown Bubble, however, has nothing on the ISD 709 Board Room Bubble, which was on full display on Tuesday night. The Board Members and various hangers-on, positing themselves as saviors of the District no matter which side they were on, battled back and forth, overtly and covertly. The PR operations were in full swing, and even though long stretches of the meeting were fairly routine and even productive, I couldn’t fight off a sense of disgust with it all. I guess I’m just hoping that someone somewhere can truly rise above the fray, but I’m just not seeing it. I shouldn’t be surprised, really, but the board room drama is at such odds with so much of the other stuff going on in the district, which plugs along at a mundane rate—not a great one, mind you, but one that hardly squares with the uniformly celebratory or uniformly apocalyptic language one hears at Historic Old Central.

But, on to the meeting. This time around, we learned just how deep the bench for Superintendent was: Supt. Gronseth was in Baltimore receiving an award on behalf of the District, Assistant Supt. Ed Crawford was revisiting his roots in France, and Deputy Clerk Bill Hansen was at a family function. This left Director of Special Services (whatever on earth those might be) Laura Fredrickson sitting in the Supt’s chair on the dais. She settled for delivering the basic Supt. Report toward the start of the meeting, and otherwise held her silence.

There were four citizen speakers; Ms. Melanie Grune thanked the Board for reaffirming the tenets of civility last month, while the other three all spoke in defense of Member Johnston, who is the subject of an investigation over alleged “abuse.” The first two were eloquent and, refreshingly, posited their concerns within a broader context. Mr. James Youngman worried about use of levy money in a city whose median income is well below that of the state, and emphasized teacher development, while former Board candidate Henry Banks demanded more information on administrators’ salaries and pleaded with the Board to quit its infighting for the good of the students. He said the Board needs questions and a healthy dialogue, and recommended a local mediator in place of a Twin Cities attorney.

Mr. Loren Martell, meanwhile, once again displayed his complete lack of tact in an attempt to shame several individual Board Members for their roles in the Johnston affair and wound up doing a lot of talking about himself and the trouble he’s seen. This whole thing has become incredibly personal for him, which is both impressive (he has put in an astonishing amount of work and sacrificed a lot) and rather sad (someone please put me out of my misery if I ever allow my life to become so tunnel-visioned). It is also why he struggles to convince people who don’t already agree with him to join his cause. As always, catharsis is good fun, but if he thinks antics like that will inspire soul-searching instead of defensiveness, he hasn’t learned the first thing about human nature. His supporters hear what they like to hear (there was a burst of applause at the end), but anyone outside the Board Room Bubble just hears a ranting nutcase. This is a shame.

Once formal meeting business began, though, things were surprisingly tame—in fact, they were so tame that it seemed like everyone was forcing it and trying to act like good, model Board Members. It’s nice to celebrate the people who put in time and work on things, and many of Member Johnston’s questions do add clarity for those of us who are not in the Bubble and don’t get to committee meetings. Maybe half the time these questions and comments seem legitimate; with the other half, there’s a veneer of fakeness and a not-so-subtle agenda underneath.

As usual, Member Harala gave a thorough Education Committee report, whose highlights included an overhaul of social studies curriculum and updates to the bullying policy, both of which are required by state mandate but enjoyed widespread support anyway. Mr. Mike Cary, the new Director of Curriculum, explained some of the revisions on that front, while Member Johnston posed a favorably received suggestion to create an annual report on bullying statistics and actions taken in response to complaints. The Board will hammer out the details of that proposal over the coming month, with further community involvement—as always, plugged heartily by Member Loeffler-Kemp—along the way.

The Human Resources Committee moved along fairly quickly, with Member Johnston asking some very basic questions on wage increases proposed for hourly and substitute district employees. He also pulled item 2B, prompting a “to be or not to be” joke and a much longer quotation of “Hamlet” from Chair Miernicki. (If I may add: “to die, to sleep; to sleep, perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub. For in that sleep of death, dreams of ISD 709 Board meetings may come, and there could be no worse torture.”) He used this to propose working in the same language he’d suggested in the bullying policy for the District’s anti-harassment policy.

The Business Committee report featured the discussions most relevant to the Johnston investigation, including a resolution establishing that board members are not ISD 709 employees and thus not subject to the Data Practices Act. (Pet peeve alert on the language used in the resolution: “IMPACT” IS NOT A VERB.) Member Johnston said this resolution didn’t really matter since he would have waived his right to privacy anyway, but made it clear he was “confused” by it, and why it had come into being. He said one of the attorneys retained by ISD 709, Kevin Rupp, had written opposite language in a similar case in Farmington, and demanded “immediate” answers to a series of prepared questions he had prepared for his accusers. Chair Miernicki (one of the accusers) immediately called the question, however, and Member Johnston went along with it; the question-calling and the resolution both passed unanimously. Member Loeffler-Kemp tried to get in a passive tense non-answer to the question about why it had come up afterwards (“questions were asked…”), but Chair Miernicki cut her off, too.

Member Johnston also jumped on a new insurance contract to point out that the District’s insurance might cover both his and the District’s bills in the investigation (I fail to see why this is odd?), and used this to go into a broader tangent about how “lawyer-happy” the District is. He was also peeved that no one could tell him how much the lawyers were being paid, though he was sort of, kind of promised those answers in time. Both he and Member Welty are suspicious of the lawyers being used, which is understandable to a degree, but one also gets the sense that they know very little of the legal procedure, and there are probably more tactful ways to learn about that than via questions at a Board meeting. Normally, I like the transparency here, but this is one place where a thorough, behind-the-scenes answer is much better than any political capital out of a “gotcha” one.

With the re-zoning of the old Central High site recently completed by the City Council, Member Harala had one quick question: what would happen to all of the stuff the District had stored there? (It would be sold at auction, according to Facilities Manager Kerry Leider.) Mr. Leider also fielded a series of follow-up questions on loading dock and roofing issues from Member Johnston, all of which had basically the same response: they’d been resolved at the contractors’ expense. Member Johnston, continuing with his suggestion-filled night, planted the idea of allowing citizen speakers to come forward to speak on specific issues, instead of just at the start of the meeting. That wrapped up the proceedings, and everyone was free to head back out of their little bubbles and into a beautiful summer night.

And that’s it, really. I have nothing new to say on the Johnston affair that I haven’t already said, and probably won’t until we get real answers. If it sounds like my patience is waning with all of this, well, it is. I guess I’m spending a little too much time in the Bubble myself. For reasons unrelated to that waning patience, next month’s Board meeting will be my last for the foreseeable future. I’ll probably have my own little cathartic moment and get a few things off my chest, but only for one a few minutes before moving on. There is comfort in the Bubble, with clear battle lines and villains to be vanquished, but in the grand scheme of things, there’s a much bigger district out there, one with far more compelling drama than anything that happens in the board room. Sooner or later, someone might discover that, and perhaps take a few people along to explore it as it is, and not as part of an ideological war. Perchance to dream.

Art Johnston Under Siege: Duluth School Board Notes, 6/17/14

With a meeting that fell five minutes short of four hours, the ISD 709 School Board endured a grueling, painful marathon on Tuesday night. I’m only going to comment briefly on the meeting at the end of this post. Part of me is very frustrated that I have to do this, and that the circus surrounding one man overpowers the interest in the far more pressing affairs looming over the District. But it’s impossible to understand everything else that happened on Tuesday night without the overall context.

That looming bit of context, of course, was last week’s headline news: Member Art Johnston is under review for alleged improper conduct. I was unable to attend the special meeting due to the frustratingly short notice given to the public, and I have some reservations about saying too much, given that my only sources of information are hearsay and a paper of which I have a rather ambivalent opinion. Still, my initial reaction was much in line with the Duluth News Tribune’s editorial over the weekend: is this really necessary?

There were eight public speakers in Member Johnston’s defense, and in addition to a lot of other noise, they put forward one key criticism, best articulated by Ms. Denette Lynch: it seemed like a very poor use of the District’s resources to investigate something that seemed like a personal dispute between Member Johnston, Chair Miernicki, and Supt. Gronseth. The majority of the group came from the familiar crowd of Johnston supporters, that curious coalition of the sincere anti-Red Plan crowd and people who are affronted by any spending on education whatsoever. Member Welty had to talk one out of displaying his large “Fire Gronseth” sign, and the crowd of Johnston supporters, numbering perhaps twenty, whooped and laughed and cheered throughout the speeches. (Chair Miernicki made no effort to stop them, which would normally bother me no matter the topic, but given the delicacy of the power dynamic at play here, it was probably the right decision. Indeed, after five months of being rather unimpressed with Chair Miernicki’s leadership, I thought he started to come into his own on Tuesday night.)

Two speakers did stand out from the crowd. One, DFL activist Brad Clifford, put forth a broader defense of minority rights and the benefits of debate and dissention, quoting several prominent liberal politicians and saying the votes of the citizens of District Four (in favor of Johnston) ought to be respected. The other was Ms. Jane Bushey, Member Johnston’s partner, whose emotional speech jived with the general outline of the Reader account. She said “lies, accusations, and assumptions” from a Duluth East administrator had led to a request that she be moved elsewhere in the district, which HR had unquestioningly accepted. “I just want to do my job,” she said, condemning the “bullies” who were out to get her. Member Johnston’s conflict of interest in the affair and “abuse related to a staff member” constituted two of the charges against him, and are apparently the reason he sought out Chair Miernicki and Supt. Gronseth for a scolding at the Duluth East graduation.

Another charge that got plenty of mention was the alleged assault, as people indignantly wondered where the police report was. The problem here, I gather, is the awful legalese used in the accusations. In my reading of the charges, no one is technically accusing Member Johnston assault. He’s being accused of something that falls under the umbrella of “alleged assault or otherwise improper conduct.” Ditto for the “racist” accusation: the complete claim is “alleged racist or otherwise improper comments.” These are horrifically worded categories that—I presume—make the accusations sound far worse than they actually are. Knowing what I do of the incident, Member Johnston is accused of the “otherwise improper” actions. Any other claim couldn’t stand on two legs, and I doubt Supt. Gronseth and Chair Miernicki are dumb enough to push that far. Instead, they thought highly charged comments and apparent conflict of interest were enough to cross the line and launch the inquest.

The “otherwise improper” categories are obviously a legal grey area. Without knowing more, I still stand by my initial assessment: this seems like a needless distraction, and one that only empowers Member Johnston’s narrative of victimhood at the hands of the rest of the Board. What’s laughable about all of this, really, is Member Johnston’s powerlessness; sure, he can cause a stink and badger people with his questions, but when it comes to actual policy influence, his achievements are minimal. The investigation gives him a soapbox to gain more attention, drags out old fights in the negative PR, and works against the general trend of the past few months, in which Member Johnston had been more agreeable than in the past.

Still, two things struck me over the course of this meeting: the number of times that I agreed with the thrust of Member Johnston’s questions and comments (which was fairly often) and the fact that, in spite of that, he still had me cringing in exasperation every time he turned on his light. Before the meeting, I had some pre-written language ready that would have mounted a much more vigorous defense of his rights. But, after Tuesday’s display, I had to throw it out. I cannot use it in good conscience.

Part of this is a style problem. Brevity is not one of Member Johnston’s strong suits. He trails on and on, repeats himself unnecessarily, and when he doesn’t get answers he wants, he will continue to ask questions, knowing full well he won’t get the desired response. He seemed to relish every such opportunity on Tuesday, thus leading to the meeting’s absurd length. It’s his way of proving a point. It isn’t uncivil, per se, but it comes across as domineering and tiresome. It lacks all perspective, and it wears people down and makes them feel like they’re being scolded. Sure, he makes occasional overtures to finding common ground, but his comments are suffused with such a lack of trust of anyone else that it’s hard to find them wholly sincere. Again, this is not all his fault, but one wonders at what point the well becomes too poisoned to be of any use.

Moreover, he has an ally on the Board in Member Welty who, despite similar voting patterns, comes off entirely differently. He’s eloquent, and manages to maintain a sharp focus on the issues that most concern him (namely, the threat of standard operating debt) without belaboring the point. A well-honed opposition message has considerable potential, and based on Member Welty’s success, might even stand to do well in elections in places other than the most anti-establishment district in the city. It just isn’t correct for Member Johnston to act as if he is not part of his own problem.

Member Johnston’s failures don’t absolve the rest of the Board of its shortcomings. On Tuesday night, it came to light that he and Member Welty were having trouble getting things on the agenda, while majority Board members were not. While the Administration deserves some leeway in agenda creation if the items in question have already been beaten to death, the “minority rights” argument does pull significant weight. I voted for Harry Welty; I like good debate and serious questions. I do find it frustrating that the Administration can’t answer all of his questions, particularly the ones pertaining to the District’s long-term finances. He needs some people to work with him.

Sadly, the only one he has right now is someone whose personality has grown so large that it overwhelms everything else that happens. Despite the loss of an agreeable vote, I suspect Member Welty might actually be able to make more headway without the specter of Member Johnston’s outbursts looming over the Board. Member Johnston may think he’s shedding light in dark places, but in the end, his relentless questioning only serves to obscure the most pressing issues. He has got to learn how to choose his battles. His reaction is a microcosm of the whole anti-Red Plan movement that got him elected in the first place: it’s an eclectic group unified only by its opposition to something, and when it finds itself stonewalled by an imperious majority, we’re left with a lot of cathartic primal screaming that drowns out substance, leading to inevitable fracturing as everyone beats their own drums. The movement stays in the headlines, yet it achieves not a single one of its objectives. They’d rather go down kicking and screaming than be so audacious as to imagine a different paradigm. The few who hazard steps in that direction, like Member Welty, find themselves rather lonely.

In a rather fitting paradox, a discussion over The Civility Project’s nine tools of civility introduced for re-affirmation by the Board illustrated this problem best. Member Welty made a few reasonable critiques of the “subjectivity” of the whole thing, but concluded by saying he hoped it would help the District “find its better angels.” Member Johnston, after hitting a few similar notes, piled on from there, condemning left and right before attempting to haul Ms. Anita Stech, an advocate for the Civility Project, up to the podium for questioning, asking this poor woman to play judge and jury on past incidents in which he thought members of the Board had been uncivil to him. I agree that the project could be fairly empty in content if people are too locked into their views to take its points in good faith. But to expect a couple of community volunteers to wade into this mess is self-serving, and misses the point completely. (The parties in question would also be accused of partisanship the second they weighed in. Do we seriously want some self-appointed Civility Police roaming the city? Do people honestly think that would end well?) The whole special resolution was a reminder of a guideline, not a binding legal contract. (On the other end of the spectrum, Members Westholm and Seliga-Punyko raised some silly objections to Member Johnston’s ultimate attempt to include “honesty and care for other Board members” on the list, worrying about hijacking the civility people’s message. Thankfully, the majority of the Board saw that this was not worth fighting over, and passed the amendment 5-2 before the whole thing was approved unanimously.)

Perhaps this critique singles out Member Johnston when someone such as Member Seliga-Punyko is just as partisan, if not more so. She, however, has the luxury of being in the majority; she can bask in her victories without undue stress. To be an effective legislator, Member Johnston can’t just throw bombs; he needs to be able to work with his fellow Board members. To his credit, he’s tried at times. But he can’t revert to old form—not even when he gets accused of things on potentially trumped-up charges. That’s the burden of being the principled member of the minority: no matter how tempting it is to lash back, one must rise above the fray. If he can, excellent; let’s put this tiff behind us and build a better District. If not, I can’t say I’ll shed any tears if he gets the boot from the Board. He may not be the man who pulls the trigger, but he most definitely will have supplied the ammunition.

One last point: Member Johnston also seems to labor under the pretension that the incivility directed toward him is among the causes for the District’s enrollment struggles. Sure, the negative headlines don’t help, but on the list of reasons why people don’t enroll their kids in ISD 709, the plight of one cantankerous Board member is very, very far down the list. Another useful point to minority members who want to advance their cause: never over-inflate your own role in the drama. Your critics may want to make you (and not your platform) the story. Don’t let them. In doing so, you hand them the win. It’s not about you.

***

So, what did the Board do on Tuesday besides play out a drama over the representative of the Fourth District? It passed a budget, for one thing. Member Welty voted against it because of his lack of information on the long-term picture, and there was some aimless talk over whether it is better to use increased assets to rebuild the reserve fund (as Member Welty suggested) or simply injected straight back into the schools (Member Johnston). There was the aforementioned flap over how to get things on the agenda, with the majority voting down Johnston and Welty 5-2 in their effort to change things.

There was a constructive discussion in the Education Committee report on the evolving policies for students who have been bullied or sexually harassed, and Member Westholm was pleased to announce that staffing levels were the most stable he’d seen in all his years. (That’s a long time.) Member Johnston, upset with how an Administration re-shuffle had opened up the curriculum director position, voted against that particular item, which otherwise passed 6-1, and he got in his usual shtick about enrollment numbers. There was a repeat of the debate over the number of people needed to call a special meeting, with the same result as at the May meeting. Member Johnston also asked why a large number of Piedmont teachers had apparently applied to transfer schools, and Supt. Gronseth replied with a long list of reasons, from changes in leadership to opportunities in administration that had opened up. That wrapped up the meeting, a few minutes shy of 10:30. Why I do this to myself, I’m not entirely sure.

Debating Duluth’s Gap: School Board Notes, 5/20/14

After a busy week of public commentary on school affairs, the ISD 709 School Board gathered for its May meeting Tuesday night. The opening stages included a heap of awards for former Student Member Eric Thibault, now a senior at East, and a somewhat amusing scholarship in which a single student from each high school was drawn from a large glass bowl containing the names of every senior in the graduating class. After these pleasantries, the Board got down to work.

The expected hot topic of the meeting was the concern about Denfeld curriculum I explored in Sunday’s post, and Superintendent Gronseth moved quickly to answer some of the worries. He first said that staffing decisions were far from final, and also brought on some applause when he said Denfeld would offer Spanish 5, in part thanks to federal funds for which the school qualifies that East does not. He also pointed out that East was currently slated to lose more courses than Denfeld, and pointed out some investments in music that will relieve some of the stress (though they do not appear address the single biggest strike against the District’s music programs, the 6-period day for 8th graders).

There were five public speakers, and all addressed the Denfeld curriculum issues. Four were parent-student combinations of Linda and Maria Puglisi and Andrew and Hans Slade, respectively; the fifth was another student, Lucy Billings. They all hit the same general notes, though all articulately, hammering the lack of equity between east and west and the steadily dwindling opportunities. They put a heavy emphasis on the enrollment gap between the schools; as Hans Slade noted, the 13 out of roughly 1000 Denfeld students who wanted to take German 5 actually made for a better ratio than the 20ish out out 1500 at East, but because East was so much larger it could field a class, while Denfeld could not. Andrew Slade worried about the perception these differences would have on families moving into Duluth, calling it an “achievement gap as serious as any other,” while Billings added that one’s “address should not determine the quality” of one’s education.

The Board floated a few possible solutions, though there were no concrete steps taken at this meeting. Several of the speakers mentioned teleconferenced classes—classes via Skype, essentially—as a solution; the District has tried this in the past, and Supt. Gronseth gave it mixed marks, and added that, while not ideal, online and post-secondary enrollment options also existed. Member Welty also proposed moving students back and forth between campuses a bit more, though this already happens to some degree, and would pose considerable logistical challenges if expanded. In the end there were few solid answers, with Supt. Gronseth adding that holding a small upper-level class in one subject would inevitably drive class sizes up somewhere else. The only concrete short-term answer, it seems, is to drive enrollments in these classes up to sustainable levels. (Obviously, this is difficult in, say, German 5 due to the prerequisites required, but my last post has some suggestions on this front.)

The Education Committee report was largely uneventful, consisting mostly of notifications on grants, field trips, and outside funding. The HR Committee was similarly quiet, with only a brief clarification: the numerous teachers who were being “terminated” are simply people who receive yearly contracts to teach less than half a load, most of whom are re-hired on a similar contract the next year, and often are retired former teachers coming back to lend a slight hand.

The drama was all reserved for the Business Committee, where Members Welty and Johnston pulled a pair of bylaw changes that increased the number of people needed to call a special meeting from two to three. This concerned these two Members for obvious reasons, which Member Welty came out and said explicitly: as the two of them were often in the minority on the Board, they worried it was a maneuver to limit their power. Member Welty said he felt “targeted,” and that these were strong signals the Board thought he “could not be trusted.” Chair Miernicki though this was “escalating” things and not very constructive, and there was some directionless talk about the number of meetings the Board had. Member Johnston demanded a reason for the change seven or eight times, being unsatisfied with the repeated answer: the Board was trying to standardize the number of people it needed to hold meetings, and to conform to a state statute.

Member Westholm thought this made things very clear, while Member Johnson countered, not without reason, that while state law sets parameters that the Board couldn’t exceed, it was entirely within the Board’s power to be more responsive to minority rights if it so chose. He said he’d written to the Minnesota School Board Association (MSBA) for clarification and awaited a response. He made several efforts to table and amend the resolutions; at first he had little luck, but the disinterest by the Board majority in awaiting the MSBA’s response troubled Member Harala. She reminded the Board of its relationship-building efforts over the previous several months, and thought rushing this measure through went against what they’d been working toward. Member Welty also said he’d happily abide by the MSBA’s interpretation, but the majority preferred to press on, and the changes both passed, 4-3.

Next came the monthly detour into WADM enrollment numbers. Member Johnston used this as a launching-off point for further discussion on Denfeld’s enrollment, and eventually was told he could get the data he wanted. There was the usual back-and-forth with Member Seliga-Punyko again insisting that the enrollment declines were natural population decline, and Member Johnston hinting something else (Red Plan fallout) was also part of the picture. While he invited people to disprove him if he was wrong, he complained that the committee meeting had mostly been spent “bashing me” instead of having a serious conversation. This led to an apologetic exchange between he and Chair Miernicki, in which Member Johnston made it clear the “bashing” was limited to one particular Member (Seliga-Punyko, presumably). Still, he returned to his main point, saying enrollment figures were only good—contra the contentions of Members Westholm and Loeffler-Kemp—by very low standards. (I’m reminded of a favorite line of mine, which I present not as a comment on this particular debate, but simply because I like it: optimism is the product of low standards and a long time horizon.) He said he wished the Board would be “more civil” and “police its own members” in this regard, while claiming that everyone in the room, including the Board and the administration was “dysfunctional.” Member Loeffler-Kemp took “personal offense” on behalf of the administrative staff, saying they’d always been a help to her. It was life as usual in WADM. After a few other minor questions, the entirety of the Business Committee report passed 6-1, with Member Johnston in opposition.

Member Johnston asked for a committee of the whole on Denfeld’s curriculum questions in the closing comments, saying the east-west disparity was the biggest thing on the Board’s table at the moment. Chair Miernicki concurred, and suggested that numerous student groups could be brought into the conversation. Member Welty grumbled about the lack of financial information he’d been receiving; while Chair Miernicki and Supt. Gronseth questioned this characterization, he did get himself further meetings with Business Services Director Bill Hansen, and shared his now-familiar warnings about standard operating debt without a change in course. Member Seliga-Punyko had a whole heap of questions for Supt. Gronseth that he promised to answer in greater detail later on, including questions about classes being lost at East, the transfer appeal process between high schools (which she seemed to suspect of worsening the enrollment gap), the future of the music programs, and where the District would direct additional state funding.

The Board wrapped up the meeting with a few last words on Denfeld, as Member Johnston bemoaned the “despairing remarks” about Denfeld despite its “noble history,” saying it was “imperative” the school did not slide further behind, and asking to know what caused the numbers disparity. After some sympathetic on the troubles with perception, Member Harala had the beginnings of an answer, and it was an important one: the Board does not operate in a vacuum, and there were many factors beyond their purview at play. She suggested a meeting with the City Council to work through some of the issues, and emphasized the importance of trust over suspicion. Chair Miernicki concluded everything with suggesting the District gather data on where students live to further their understanding.

Despite the lack of obvious steps taken, it was an important meeting for the Board, and it offered the beginnings of an honest discussion on the east-west dynamics of this city that I’ve been pining for over and over again on this blog, and on all sorts of issues. Duluth is not a one-size-fits-all city, and anyone with any vision for it has to take its constituent parts one by one. Once again, I was especially impressed by Member Harala, who showed some leadership in standing up for a minority she does not necessarily agree with, and for being the only Member who outwardly acknowledges the scope of the challenges facing the district without reverting to Red Plan-era ideological lines to frame her views. There are intelligent and caring people on both sides of that divide, and in the end, they do have a common goal here. I may have a long time horizon, but I’m not going to abandon my high standards, and even then, I still find some room for optimism: for all that divides the ten people on the dais, discussion seems to be lurching closer and closer to something resembling a transparent reality, from fiscal issues to Duluth’s divisions. Let’s hope that process continues.

Dissonance in a District Divided

On Saturday, the Duluth News Tribune’s Jana Hollingsworth wrote the paper’s best piece about ISD 709 in my memory. It was thorough, powerful, and on the depressing side. As usual, this is one of the few things that drives me up on to a soapbox. Here I go.

The article is primarily about the struggles of ISD 709’s music programs, which have taken a big hit in recent years. The number of music educators in the district has been halved since my graduation just six years ago, to say nothing of the private and small-group lessons that were already in decline. I wrote about this a little bit after the school board meeting two months ago (see the notes after the stars toward the end): a six-period middle school day makes for some ugly choices by students, and music is the natural victim. The suggestion in a letter by Superintendent Gronseth to parents that students don’t really need to study a foreign language in eighth grade, while true to the extent that it corrects a false rumor, would irk me if I were a parent. Shut up and eat your broccoli, kids!

What makes this article impressive, though, is that it digs a bit deeper, and acknowledges that elephant in the room that no one likes to talk about: Duluth’s east-west divide. Duluth is a split city; the new two high school set-up may make that distinction more obvious, but wasn’t any less real before the Red Plan. We have an east side that is home to the financial and intellectual elite of northeastern Minnesota, and while not everyone in the East attendance area is a cakeater, the ancillary benefits of wealth and stable neighborhoods can make all the difference in the world. The east side has the cultural capital to withstand budget crises and large class sizes, and its involved parents will fight hard to make sure the money keeps flowing into the coffers. Meanwhile, we have a west side that has a shrinking student population, more than double the number of kids on free and reduced lunch, and—perhaps most damagingly—a “far more transient” population. How can a District ever make real progress when kids are here one year and gone the next?

Sure, there are bureaucratic ways of getting around this, but it’s tough, given Duluth’s geography. Something like one half of the student-aged population now lives east of 21st Avenue. Elaborate line-drawing and busing schemes are an option, but as we reflect on the 60 years since Brown v. Board, we’ve learned that, however noble the intent, busing alone cannot correct the inequities in a city, and in general has simply proven another catalyst for white flight to the suburbs. Duluth’s dynamics in this regard are far less racial, but there’s no reason not to think that a number of those with the means to do so wouldn’t follow the incentives and create their own solutions if their children are forced into the “weaker” school in a search for equity. Like it or not, reality demands that Duluth confront the incentives that exist in the current system. No PR operation is going to change them. The solutions here are primarily in the realm of economics and urban planning, not school buses.

I’ve said this numerous times when talking about this divide, and I’ll stress it again here: the west side of Duluth is no ghetto. It has some quality neighborhoods and a strong sense of identity. It’s not beyond repair, and some people on the west side would take issue with the suggestion that it even needs repair. To the extent that it does, much of it is beyond the purview of a school district. It can’t give parents jobs or repair broken families or generate homeownership, and educational struggles will probably forever follow issues such as those. It makes no sense to force students district-wide into the same box and expect the same outcomes. Solutions must work with the reality on the ground.

ISD 709 has, quietly, acknowledged this. From the singular focus on math and reading at Laura Macarthur to the intensive programs at Lincoln Park detailed in this latest article, the District has put extra emphasis on basic skills. This is in many regards a practical decision, both in the need to raise test scores for funding purposes and in the need to have kids who can function at reasonable levels. Obviously, this isn’t without its trade-offs, sometimes potentially very negative ones. The most familiar is mentioned by Member Seliga-Punyko: things like music, athletics, and elective classes give kids reasons to be excited about school, and want to be there. If they don’t get this stuff early in their lives, is there any reason to expect they ever will?

There is another danger, here, though, something underscored even further by the recent elimination of Spanish 5 at Denfeld: there needs to be a track for the high-achieving kids on the west side to keep up with their peers on the east. The benefits are manifold: it sets a high bar that can give students a reason to strive in school. Those high-achieving students, many of them from stable families with deep roots in the area, are the glue that holds these schools together, and the foundation necessary for any broader scheme to rebuild that side of the city after thirty years of industrial decline. If options for those students get squeezed out, odds are they’re going to leave, and that only worsens the trickle-down effect. The west side’s test scores drop further, more resources get shipped out there to prop them up, and in time the east side starts to feel the strain, too, and suddenly we’re all going down the drain together. If that means devoting some extra resources to the west side to prop up certain options, as Clare Chopp suggests, then this kid who bleeds red and grey says “make it happen.”

This isn’t a big city. ISD 709 can’t just close low-performing schools left and right as in large urban districts, especially not in the wake of the Red Plan. (Though even that isn’t guaranteed to work; see this striking piece on school reform in Newark in last week’s New Yorker.) For all their differences, the east and west sides are intricately interconnected. It is not the job of school districts to make war on geography, and while they can be a source of social change—and probably should be, to the extent that they can—it’s delusional to think schools can do it alone, or even that they are the primary factor. Instead, the District has to work with what it has. There is only so much the schools can control, and I certainly have plenty of sympathy for the School Board members and principals as they make painful decisions on what must be cut. In the end, it all comes back to incentives: a few gentle pushes can make sure students have all of the opportunities they deserve.

To that end, here’s one idea: actively pressure kids to take tougher classes so that they can generate the numbers necessary to sustain them. Much too big of a deal is made out of the AP label in ISD 709. Just about anywhere else in the country, AP is a relative commonplace. If inner-city schools can cram a host of poorly-prepared students through the AP curriculum every year—as many do—Duluth most definitely can come up with a single class of AP World History students at Denfeld. Even a half-assed AP class that doesn’t quite teach to the test is better than a “regular” course (though it should, of course, aim for the top—push the kids, and who knows what might happen).

I understand that AP is not the be-all, end-all, and six years removed, I can see what a rat race the fight for a good high school résumé was. However, this is not something you lessen by lecturing from on high on what one needs to take to go to college, nor by lopping off options and saying “eh, you’ll turn out alright in the end.” AP is not for everyone, just as college is not for everyone, and there is no shame in finding stable employment in, say, a trade profession. (To ISD 709’s credit, its programs in this department are strong, and it should be commended for standing by them, despite this not doing much for those all-important test scores.) CITS covers most of what kids need for local colleges and can even ready kids for AP tests adequately with just some minor tweaks, and I’m naturally bit skeptical of blanket standards imposed by the College Board. Still, AP is the common language spoken at strong colleges across the country, and I would have been dead in the water at Georgetown without the skills I learned in the AP classes I had. I can’t speak for Denfeld, but when I was at East, I was impressed with the school’s ability to prepare students for a variety of paths, from elite colleges to the local ones to the trade professions. There was a healthy diversity there, and in my mind, that is more important than relentless pursuit of higher test scores.

The path to tougher classes could be further incentivized by weighting grades. That would give students added reason to challenge themselves, and also might break up some of the grade inflation that can happen in ISD 709. Fifteen people in my East graduating class had 4.0s, which is kind of ridiculous. Everyone gets a medal! Not that there weren’t plenty of very smart people in that group, but there were surely some different paths to those high GPAs, to say nothing of the hyper-competitiveness fostered by the fear that a single B could drop a person 15 spots in their class rank. It would be cute if we could get kids to take high-level courses simply for the love of learning, but a little push never hurts, and getting into the deeper stuff isn’t a bad way to hook people, so long as it’s well-taught.

All of this brings us back to music, and there really is only one solution to that conundrum: get that seventh period restored to the middle school day. I don’t want to hear anyone blaming the Red Plan, and I don’t want to hear anyone blaming state or federal mandates. There are plenty of things I dislike about both of them, but framing all of this District’s issues through them amounts to a whiny denial of responsibility in the here and now. We have to confront reality, not a world of wishful thinking in which things are not as they are. Whatever Supt. Gronseth might plead in a letter, there is no sustainable future for the music programs with a six-period day. I was impressed by his admission in the article that some of the things the District tries to save money “don’t work out so well.” That’s an essential review process, and there is no shame in that admission. We could use more of it in many fields, and no one is above it.

Of course, this is all easy for me to say; we’ll see what can feasibly be done. Tuesday’s Board meeting should be an interesting one: do the Members rehash the same old talking points and past wars, or do they confront the existing problems with both the seriousness and the humility necessary? Their actions over the first few months of this new term have given me some hope. As usual, I’ll be on hand to see if they hit the right notes.

A Light at the End of the Tunnel? Duluth School Board Notes, 4/22/14

Spring was in the air for the ISD 709 School Board’s April meeting; it wasn’t even dark out when things got going. (Hey, little things like that matter in Duluth.) A number of students were on hand to do their public meeting duties for government classes, and after a prolonged absence, Ms. Marcia Stromgren was back at augmenting her home video collection of school board meetings. The TV broadcast had some sound issues that required Chair Miernicki to stick a little sign up in front of his seat, but otherwise, it was a fairly routine night at Historic Old Central.

There was an unusually large amount of wrangling over the minutes, and things also got interesting when Members Johnston and Welty tried to get a review of several Long Range Facilities Plan (LRFP) change orders on the agenda. Frustrated by their inability to do so, they had apparently resorted to a grumpy flyer distributed at the Business Committee meeting the previous week. An exasperated Member Seliga-Punyko tried to immediately call the question, saying the process was “déjà vu” of endless arguments over the previous five years, and that District practices had clearly been “examined by lawyers” and found proper. Only Member Loeffler-Kemp sided with her, though, freeing Member Johnston to say that he simply wanted a discussion in public, and that “people don’t have to agree with me.” Member Harala stepped in to say the Board needed to “sit down and decide how to get things on the agenda” and suggested they give the Administration time to be able to give a proper presentation on the question at hand. The Board agreed with her by a 5-2 margin, and after a brief back-and-forth with Member Loeffler-Kemp, Member Johnston decided to withdraw his attempt to discuss how things get on the agenda until next month.

Thus thwarted, Member Johnston took to the stand as a citizen speaker to explain his interest in these particular change orders. He said there were “at least five” LRFP change orders totaling at least $11.2 million that the Board never voted on, cannot be found in meeting minutes, and that six current and past Board Members were “unaware” of them. Of the $19.3 million increase in LRFP funding passed in March 2012 by the Board, he claimed that $8.7 million—a whopping 45 percent—went straight to Johnson Controls. Member Johnston announced his intent to bring these mysterious figures before the state auditor, the attorney general, and the state Department of Education. After he finished, the issue wasn’t mentioned again.

Otherwise, the early stages of the meeting were upbeat. The Board recognized the Duluth Aviation Institute for its support for science education in 6th grade classes, and Superintendent Gronseth told tales of his new acting career. He also said a survey exploring the possibility of late starts for weather delays will be going out soon, and there was some celebration of Earth Day by both he and Member Loeffler-Kemp. Member Harala took the Board and viewing public on a tour of the Education Committee report; highlights included a presentation on the District integration plan, whose funding cycle had undergone a large change; presentations on Head Start; and new policies on the process for adding athletic programs, though Member Harala lamented the lack of Quidditch among the proposed programs. The whole report sailed through without any real debate, though several Members recommended that citizens with any interest in the topics come to the committee meetings to learn more. (Okay, okay, I’ll get there someday.)

Member Welty introduced the HR Committee Report by saying they’d set a record by going for an hour and a half in the committee meeting, but with the teachers’ union contract pulled for further consideration, we were spared any such repeat on Tuesday. It too breezed through without any trouble, though one suspects that the special session to discuss this contract, tentatively set for May 1, will be a bit more of an adventure. (Member Welty, for one, has expressed some reservations.)

Two Business Committee items inspired the longest debates of the night. The first was a resolution to further re-zone and subdivide the old Central High School site so as to make it more marketable for sale. Member Johnston raised some doubts; first, he wanted to know if there had been any offers over the past three years (none, though there had been “many” conversations), and later, he worried the District might flush more dollars into the site in “pre-development” to make it more marketable. He recommended simply lowering the price to hurry the sale along. Supt. Gronseth countered that there was “no lack of interest” and that zoning and the recession were the biggest obstacles. Several Members thanked DEDA and the City for their support, while Chair Miernicki expressed optimism and pointed to BlueStone Lofts as a sign of how quickly a mixed-use development can take off and succeed. Member Johnston was on the fence until the end, but ultimately voted to support the resolution, and it passed unanimously.

Next, it was on to the monthly discussion of enrollment numbers, though this time it was more involved than ever before. Member Johnston, as usual, pointed out some losses, grumbled about the attitude of some in the Administration who seemed to not think it terribly serious, and insisted it should be an agenda item. Member Welty concurred on this last point, nodding to Mayor Ness’s goal for increasing city population as a similar ideal worth striving for. (Just so long as they didn’t cheat and try to annex something, Member Johnston added.) Supt. Gronseth pointed to some positive trends, including several projections the District had beaten and a preliminary OK for the District’s new online programs. Members Harala and Loeffler-Kemp emphasized the importance of positivity and focusing on the many good things happening in schools to draw people back, a point Member Johnston conceded, and said his goal of 9,000 students in five years was in fact an ambitious and positive goal. In a rare spurt of loquaciousness, Member Westholm talked of the cycles of enrollment, improvements in the lowest grades, and a “light at the end of the tunnel.” He also added that uncertainty over which schools would be open, not the quality of the education, was the primary cause of the “exodus,” particularly in his own Piedmont neighborhood.

Member Seliga-Punyko seized on this point to emphasize the instability of the last 20-30 years, with school closures being proposed all over the place, and said the LRFP would rectify these troubles now that no one was on the chopping block, and that facilities finally supported curriculum. Member Johnston then pointed out that the District has been slashing curriculum, and that it needs money it doesn’t have to fix this, while Chair Miernicki pointed out that something is always being cut, no matter what. Member Seliga-Punyko blamed the financial situation on unfunded mandates for special education; if the state and federal government put in a fraction of what they claimed they would, she said, the District wouldn’t be in this financial conundrum. (This freed Chair Miernicki to say that Jesse Ventura had once gotten something right as governor of Minnesota, in his demand that the federal government fund its mandates.) This rubbed some people the wrong way since it seemed to blame special education; while that was obviously not Member Seliga-Punyko’s intent, it’s worth pointing out that unfunded mandates, while awful and deserving of further lobbying at higher levels of government, are reality. It would be wrong to budget for this money when we all know it’s not coming.

After a brief discussion of a re-roofing project at Congdon Elementary, the Board wrapped up its business. Student Member Manning thanked the rest of the Board for its comments on curriculum and mandates, and there was talk of getting Board Members into schools whenever possible. Member Loeffler-Kemp also plugged a neighborhood meeting at Lester Park Elementary on April 29 at 5:30 to discuss the future of the old Rockridge Elementary site.

All in all, it wasn’t a very conclusive meeting. The pulling of the teachers’ contract left the Board without anything terribly controversial on its plate, and while Member Johnston’s accusations at the start of the meeting are certainly worth watching, it’s probably best to await the Administration’s reply before speculating any further on that front. That left us with an interesting talk on enrollment, though the talk has yet to really amount to much. After his flame-throwing at the start of the meeting, Member Johnston was in a relatively agreeable and constructive mood, while Member Welty held his silence more than usual. Most of the topics touched on tonight will be up again in the not-so-distant future, and perhaps for more newsworthy reasons.

This is life with the Post-Red Plan Board: there is still some clear lingering animosity, and everyone has their own theory on what caused recent financial troubles and enrollment declines. Still, there is also a sense from all sides that there’s a lot of other work to be done now, and there is an ongoing tension between acknowledging the difficulties and being the salespeople they all need to be to improve District enrollment. It’s a balancing act, and it’s easy to wobble off into woe-is-us moaning or smarmy blind optimism. As Member Westholm noted, there are good reasons to believe there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and to therefore follow the track that has made Don Ness such a popular mayor: a positive, consensus-building agenda that brings many parties to the table in the pursuit of a somewhat vague but certainly brighter future. As with the Ness agenda, there’s a lot to be said for this; staying in the tunnel of backbiting negativity only increases perceptions of dysfunction, and no amount of yelling will magically turn on the lights. But positivity alone won’t get anything done. The District does need careful reviews of existing practices, due diligence on new proposals, and to make sure that, in the words of a famed philosopher, the light at the end of a tunnel is not in fact a train.

A Meeting that Cannot Be Summarized Pithily: Duluth School Board Notes, 3/18/14

Despite Chair Miernicki’s earnest pleas that the ISD 709 School Board hurry through its meeting so as to get home before too much more snow fell on Tuesday night, the audience was instead subjected to a marathon of a meeting. The Board crammed a lot in to its two and a half hours of business, and it wound up being one of the more memorable meetings I’ve seen.

The night began on a musical theme, as the Duluth East Choralaires and Sterling Strings both performed in honor of Music in the Schools Month. (This former Sterling Strings bassist was pleased with the performance of his successor.) Ms. Teri Akervik, the schools’ Music Curriculum Specialist, then put in her plug for music programming in the schools, talking of the “roller coaster” of funding cuts over the past decade. A citizen speaker who gives private music lessons, Ms. Jana Blomquist, gave an even more pointed plea. She compared Duluth to her former home in Iowa, where children began on instruments at much younger ages, and claimed there was a large gap between the talents of young musicians in surrounding districts and those in Duluth.

Another speaker gave a brief update on the schools’ community garden project, happily noting the strong attendance at a recent meeting and hoping for a future opportunity to give a longer update. In the Superintendent’s report, Supt. Gronseth acknowledged the success of several teams in interscholastic competitions, including the high school robotics competition held in Duluth two weekends ago and the Destination Imagination improv competition for younger grades. He also plugged the two teams nearest to my heart: the Duluth East hockey team, and also the East Knowledge Bowl team, which is sending two teams to State this year. (Live it up at Cragun’s, kids…I was fortunate enough to go three times, and each one was a blast.)

After that, it was on to the Education Committee report, which was lengthy this time around. There was some brief discussion of the busing in the District’s HeadStart program, though the funding there does not come from the District, so it didn’t go very far; Member Johnston expressed his relief that Piedmont Elementary’s HeadStart was up and running again after temporarily falling victim to the sequester. Next, Member Welty apologized for misrepresenting historical graduation rates in past comments; after doing further research, he’d noted the District was in somewhat better shape now than it was ten years ago. Member Johnston was happy to see some goals set for improving graduation rates, though he also took a moment to once again point out Duluth’s brutal achievement gap for African-American and Native American students, with the added caveat that he is “not blaming anybody but [himself] as a Board member” for that situation.

Next up was a plan to align District curriculum with broader standards, which Supt. Gronseth had announced would be happening at a much faster pace than previously planned at last month’s meeting. If this had struck anyone as a curiously fast acceleration, the reason became all too clear over the past weekend, when a story broke in the News-Tribune claiming that Laura MacArthur, the west side elementary school lauded for its dramatic turnaround on state test scores, had effectively abandoned social studies and science curriculum in order to reach that goal.

The issue is a complex one. For starters, there were plenty of complaints about overbearing dictates from higher levels of bureaucracy. Member Johnston decried the “top-down” orders from Washington, and both he and Member Westholm talked about the troubles of using test scores as the judge of a school’s quality; Member Westholm had an anecdote about the particularities of geometry curriculum from his time at Denfeld. Chair Miernicki noted the irony in the fact that ISD 709 is allegedly an “independent” school district when there are 44 benchmarks from on high for one single elementary school. Some of the most scathing remarks came from Member Seliga-Punyko, who blasted the “hypocrisy” of the state Department of Education for chastising Duluth over its curriculum standards so shortly after identifying Laura MacArthur as a “priority school” based on its test scores. The District had taken its grant to turn the school around and done exactly that, earned national recognition, and now they were being criticized for doing it all wrong? She also took a rather delicious (though also not exactly accurate) shot at the Dept. of Education for “approving a charter school for hockey” while coming down on Duluth at the same time.

As usual, Member Johnston went a step further in his criticism. He “hope[d] the accusations are false,” but was upset about hearing about the confusion from the newspaper, not the Administration, and said he had made many inquiries in emails to the Supt., many of which he did not respond to, while the Department of Education had always responded to his queries within an hour. “We’re the last to find out anything,” he complained, repeating the gist of his comments about five times. Supt. Gronseth disagreed with some of these characterizations, saying he had indeed presented several updates as plans evolved. Member Welty, while more diplomatic in his remarks, expressed similar sentiments. He worried that the District had “panicked” over the test scores and cut corners to fix the issue, and thought the situation demanded further review by the Board. He hoped the Administration would cooperate on the matter.

The Board then took up a reconsideration of last June’s vote to move ahead with a plan to close high school campuses during the lunch hour. Chair Miernicki suggested rescinding the plan, saying he’d been “opposed from the outset,” and had worries about the costs, use of personnel, and the ability of the schools to enforce the policy. Joining him in criticism were the two non-voting Student Members. Member Manning said it made schools feel like a “prison” and would probably burden students who are already disadvantaged, and that forcing people to be in a place is not effective for education; Member Tremble said he’d spoken with many Denfeld students who disliked the change, and added that “a small percentage are ruining this” for everyone else. Member Welty talked of his exchanges with Officer Mike Tusken on the matter, and said he was at least open to the idea of a closed campus, but did not think the District had committed the resources necessary to ensure that the closed campuses would not be prisons. “We don’t have our ducks in a row,” he said, adding that the Board should “wait to do it the right way.”

The defenders of the open campus were led by Member Seliga-Punyko, who came out with guns blazing. She said it would decrease truancy, allow for less substance abuse, make for better neighborhood relations, and lead to fewer accidents. She questioned the motives of anonymous administrators who gave the program a $200,000 price tag, saying most of the expenses had already been accounted for by the Long-Range Facilities Plan, and scoffed at the notion that a half-hour in a lunchroom with one’s friends was akin to a prison sentence. She and Member Harala also talked of upholding the past Board’s precedent, though Member Welty pointed out that he hadn’t been on that Board, and Member Manning said there was nothing wrong with going back to re-visit something after gaining more information.

The Board spent a fair amount of time talking about a mysterious thing called a “power hour,” which momentarily freaked me out, because anyone in my generation associates that phrase with the excessive consumption of alcohol. (I’m not exactly a member of the temperance brigade, but if that’s happening during school lunch hours, closing the campuses is a no-brainer!) To my relief, it was instead some sort of enriching way to fill that time during the lunch hour that some schools use, though no one ever bothered to explain what this might entail. (But seriously, do people not Google these things before they name them?) There was much vague talk of implementing this sort of thing, though it never moved beyond that.

Member Harala, noting that these things could be talked about forever if nothing decisive was done, called the question; the measure passed. The margin was apparently 4-2, with Members Welty and Miernicki in opposition and Member Johnston abstaining because he was on the fence, though it was hard to tell, as Chair Miernicki made no effort to count the votes, and Member Johnston’s abstention only came to light much later in the meeting. Member Loeffler-Kemp moved to put the funding for the program into the Business Committee report, which frustrated Member Johnston; Member Welty worried that sort of move would cut off further debate, while Member Westholm said it didn’t lock them into anything. It was placed into the Business Committee report by a 5-2 margin, with Members Welty and Johnston opposed; once there, the measure passed 6-1, with Member Johnston again in the opposition, and pointing out that the District could pay the salaries of three teachers with the money spent on closing campuses.

Next up was the proposed make-up of some of the seven days lost to weather this year, which tacked on two full school days and added 12 minutes to each school day for the remainder of the year starting next week. Member Johnston said the twelve minutes “seemed kinda silly” but couldn’t think of a better method, and announced his support; Member Welty seemed to agree, pointing out potential lost funding due to lack of school hours. He and Student Member Manning also asked if something could be done to accommodate students with after-school jobs, but Supt. Gronseth nixed this with the mother of all education euphemisms (“every conversation is worth having, but…”), and noted that all students would mysteriously get after-school jobs if this allowance were made. Chair Miernicki said that, as a former teacher, twelve minutes could make all the difference in the world. There was much inspired talk about what can be made of twelve minutes, with Member Harala noting that most TED Talks are that long, and Member Welty saying he’d learned a novel new shoe-tying method from a TED Talk in three. The rest of the Education Report was then approved unanimously.

The Human Resources Report was up next, and there was some rare debate there, as a three-year renewal of Supt. Gronseth’s contract was on the table. Member Johnston suggested they table the measure to allow for more debate, but no one seconded the motion; Member Welty said he’d been tempted, but he deferred to the wisdom of the previous Board, which had conducted an evaluation of the Supt’s performance the previous year. Member Johnston asked if he might have a private forum to air some of his concerns, but Chair Miernicki told him the process had to be public; with many qualifications and apologies, Member Johnston said this was the “last chance” to bring up a number of issues. He then went down a laundry list of his concerns about the District, including cuts in staff, curriculum, the credit rating; rising class sizes, deficits, tax burdens; and no progress on bringing lost students back to the District. He also noted that the Supt’s salary ($168,000), while flat, was the highest of any non-Metro Minnesota districts. He claimed Supt. Gronseth had not been vetted properly, though the rest of the Board disagreed; Member Harala also pointed out Duluth’s size as justification for the higher salary, and Chair Miernicki called the Supt’s performance in the evaluation session “outstanding.” Member Welty said he thought many of Member Johnston’s concerns deserved attention, but reiterated his support, and the contract passed 6-0, with Member Johnston abstaining.

The rest of the Human Resources Report passed unanimously, as did everything in the Business Report other than the previously discussed funding allocations. In the closing comments, Supt. Gronseth thanked his colleagues on the podium for his new contract, and Member Harala thanked the work of those on the Education Equity Advisory Committee. Student Member Manning brought the night full circle by worrying about the effects of the 6-period middle school day on the District’s music programs; Member Seliga-Punyko agreed wholeheartedly. Member Welty also concurred, but said he wasn’t sure how the District could save its music programs without a “serious re-evaluation of how we do these things…talk is cheap.” Member Miernicki closed the proceedings with a tongue-in-cheek moment of prayer for no snow day the next day, and had his wish granted, as the storm skirted Duluth.

***

I know this post is already long, but there was a lot to digest in this meeting and I’m in an opinionated mood today, so I’m going to offer more commentary than usual.

First off, compliments for everyone: there is a superb diversity of views on the School Board right now. The debate is great, and while there are heated exchanges, they are not personal. That’s a night and day difference from the last term, and it’s a big step in the right direction.

Now, some critiques and opinions. I’ll begin with Ms. Blomquist’s comments on the music programs, in which she said Duluth’s instrumental music programs were worse than those in neighboring districts. This was certainly not my experience when I was in ISD 709 6-10 years ago; in fact, it was quite the contrary, and as I participated in a regional youth symphony, I had pretty good grounds for a comparison. Several members of Sterling Strings open enrolled from Hermantown, in large part because of the music program. That said, the recent move to a six-period middle school day is indeed grave for the music programs. If I were an ISD 709 8th grader today, foreign language almost certainly would have taken precedence over music, and my orchestra career would have ended there. I’m not sure the trickle-up effects of the schedule change have had enough time to make the impact suggested by Ms. Blomquist’s alarmist language, but if something isn’t done soon, it will get there in time. This is a real concern.

I don’t have a strong opinion on the closed campuses; there are benefits to doing it, and I don’t think anyone will really be unduly burdened by it. That said, it just doesn’t make a whole lot of financial sense right now, and I think there are far more pressing issues on the District’s plate.

Also, to be blunt: Chair Miernicki is a good man, but there were way too many procedural errors in tonight’s meeting. I understand he was trying to get through things quickly because of the weather, but the amount of time lost due to missed lights, misstatements, and parliamentary confusion far exceeded any time he might have saved by trying to hurry things through. It is far better to pause for a second to make sure one has allowed everyone to have their say and has the proper procedure lined up than it is to go barreling ahead to save a few seconds here and there.

On the Laura MacArthur situation, it’s hard to say much without all the facts, but it’s worth noting that the Administration never denied the charge, and the rapid response certainly suggests there was a serious, if not total, cut to programs outside of reading and math. I can only imagine what my reaction would have been if I had a kid there and that happened, and I’m especially concerned for the plight of the Laura Mac students who already were doing reasonably well in reading and math. There’s plenty of blame to go around. No one is really wrong here; federal standards, education bureaucracy, excessive testing, Red Plan-related cuts, and a contradictory Department of Education all come into play. Ultimately, though, I find Member Welty’s characterization the most accurate: if true, this was a sad overreaction, and the buck has to stop with the District.

Not knowing the details, I can’t comment too much on the communication dispute between Member Johnston and Supt. Gronseth, but there is obviously room for improvement there on both ends. I’ve said this before, but things that Supt. Gronseth seems to think are clear and transparent are sometimes anything but—and if they aren’t to me, they certainly aren’t to the general public. Member Johnston, meanwhile, still has his moments of tiring obstreperousness, but to be fair, he is practically falling over himself trying to be polite and qualify his comments. For all his disruptive history, I don’t doubt he’s acting in good faith so far in this new term, and whether or not we agree, some of his questions deserve answers.

The problem is that the Board doesn’t really have a good mechanism for raising the big picture questions he and Member Welty want to raise. It’s very easy for the majority of the Board to go along with business as usual, and that rarely gives chances for big picture questions, since so many things happen in such a piecemeal fashion. With the Red Plan rancor starting to fade away, it might finally be possible to have a serious conversation here that doesn’t devolve into the blame game it has been for the past six or seven years. That would take some maturity out of certain debate participants that isn’t always there, but I have some confidence it would work.

Half of the time, I want to roll my eyes at the critics, many of whom are running around like Chicken Little and creating a big fuss, which in turn creates a self-fulfilling PR prophecy for the District. If you really think this District is in bad shape, especially considering its demographics, get out of Duluth for a bit. On the other hand, relentless positivity in the face of real problems, including some new problems that (whatever the cause) have popped up in the past few years, gets to be pretty grating after a while, and gives the impression that some heads are buried in the sand. With our diverse and fairly civil Board, I’d be curious to see what comes out of a serious big-picture appraisal of the District. Yes, there would be some risk of picking at scabs, but I’d be inclined to give all sides credit no matter what comes out of it.