School Board meeting: 1/20/15.
Normally only a few people attend school board meetings who aren’t district employees. These good citizens do their best to hang in there, but within an hour or so they usually dash for the door, yawning prodigiously. Each one still deserves a gold star for effort. Most of the people who showed up in Old Central High on this mild winter night took an extra step of good citizenship. They strode up to the public podium, to voice concerns to their elected representatives.
The first was Tim Davis, who asked two direct questions: “What will the school board do to hold the district more accountable for kids-of-color graduation rates; to close the achievement gap? And why has the school board not spent more money on diversifying its operations in all schools, district wide?” Young Mr. Davis paused and looked at the Board after asking these questions, as if expecting an answer, then walked back to his seat.
The next speaker was Gordon Downs, who bluntly expressed disapproval about the Board majority’s actions towards its two minority members. “You talk about civility really nice, but I disagree with the way you’re treating a couple of your Board members--Art Johnston and Harry Welty…I don’t understand how citizens of Duluth can vote for a school board member to represent their district, and then there’s four or five members who dislike the way he’s speaking and they’re going to throw him off the Board…”
The next speaker was an East High student, Paul Manning. He asked Board members to keep in mind the disturbing rates of depression and anxiety in the schools. “(Those) rates have been increasing steadily…If progress is measured in the mental health and happiness of young people, we have been going backwards for some time in America.” Displaying wisdom beyond his years, Mr. Manning pointed out that what often determines whether a young person is depressed or suffers from anxiety is “whether you feel you can change the world.” He appealed to the Board to put more resources into training teachers to emphasize a more holistic goal of happiness and well-being, rather than the pursuit of wealth.
The next speaker was Richard Paulson, a retired banker and former school board member. Doubt suffuses Mr. Paulson’s demeanor every time he returns to the boardroom. He approaches the podium with a slow, deliberate step and does his best to illuminate a pathway back to good common sense. He points out irregularities in the district’s accounting and reminds the Board of dusty policies that were put in place for a reason. This evening he spoke about policy 3215. This policy dictates that the Board request the State Auditor’s Office to conduct the district’s annual audit every five years. “The last State audit,” Mr. Paulson informed us, “was in 1994, so I think you’re a little behind in following this policy…It is very, very important to get another set of eyes to look at the financial affairs of this school district. It (the policy) is in black and white--let’s do it.”
Of course it will be done--about the time global warming produces the first palm tree on Park Point or Duluth finally wakes up and elects a new school board, whichever comes first.
The last speaker, Marcia Stromgren, pointed out that member Johnston, in his sixth year on the Board “has not been appointed to one committee…” She looked up at the Board and asked, “and he should not get upset?” Mrs. Stromgren also reiterated Mr. Davis’ concerns about the achievement gap, then listed some of failings of the Red Plan--such as the inequities that have developed between East and West schools. She questioned the value of the investment she’s been forced to pay for as a taxpayer. “I don’t see this school district really educating for my dollar, and I’m really tired of paying more taxes every year.”
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Likely to be a short
meeting, said the optimist.
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The public’s concerns vented, things moved along fairly smoothly--a positive sign for the first meeting of the year. The Report from the Education Committee (still Chaired by Member Harala) contained nothing controversial. Member Welty pulled one item for discussion--the newly formed Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs Committee, already being referred to by its acronym: ATOD.
Mr. Welty mused about the forces that drive young people to abuse alcohol and drugs. He praised the point made by Paul Manning during public comment. “Mr. Manning said something I think was very wise…If we want children to be able to shrug off depression and anxiety, we need to prepare them for life--not necessarily just making a lot of money, but for having the higher purpose of making the world a better place.” Member Welty said he understood it was a “tall order” for schools to instill a sense of real empowerment in kids, “but this is going to be a short meeting, and these are very important things for us to be thinking about.”
We moved on to the Human Resources Committee, where former Board Chair Miernicki now reigns over a smaller fiefdom as HR Committee Chair. Mr. Miernicki may no longer be the King, but Board majority members are like the Saud Family. The boardroom is their country and none of them are ever totally out of power.
HR Chair Miernicki looked relaxed in his new role. There wasn’t much to get stressed about in his Committee report. He read a resolution to approve a recently negotiated contract with one of the district’s collective bargaining units. Members Johnston and Welty voiced their perennial complaint that the Board had been kept out of the loop until after changes had been made in the contract language. The majority displayed no indication of caring, and the contract was approved.
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Best not to presume anything, said the realist.
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We’d reached the home stretch--the Business Committee Report--in just under an hour, warp speed by school board standards. The Business Committee Report is often the bumpiest part of the meeting. Politics and finance tend to rub and spark during discussions of agenda items, and grit flies into the gears of government. The rows of old desks in the boardroom creaked as the remaining citizens shifted their bottoms, wondering about Mr. Welty’s presumption of brevity.
Some citizens had already disappeared. A line-by-line explanation of changes in the pending employee contract during the HR report apparently persuaded them better options existed for the precious seconds of their mortal existence.
Bill Westholm is this year’s reigning Chair of the Business Committee. His very first act as Chair was to rearrange his committee’s agenda, based on a recommendation from the district’s CFO, Bill Hanson. Right off the bat, he read a resolution requiring approval by the Board to borrow $4.4 million. The district needs the money so it can pay its bills until the State forks over more aid money, deferred until the end of the year.
The school board blew the district’s $30 million dollar reserve over the past decade, so it had to borrow more than four mill.
It was either borrow the dough or start summer vacation in about a month.

RED, RED, RED

School district administration continues to contend (straight-faced) that every promise Johnson Controls made about the Red Plan is accurate. The majority controlling the school board has bought this spin without question for nearly ten years. Not a single majority member seems to have been prone to left-side brain function. Lefties are rare and mental ambidexterity even rarer. Most people have a strong preference to swim through the sea of words on the right side of the brain.
The Board’s generally clueless comprehension of district numbers was revealingly expressed by Business Committee Chair Westholm, after reading the resolution to borrow $4.4 million: “This is something I don’t really know that well or understand that well.” Westholm admitted. “We’ll rely on Mr. Hanson.”
Bill Hanson has been Mr. Reliable for a long time. A middle-aged man who has undoubtedly logged considerable hours stooped over accounting ledgers, he is very fluent in the language of the left-brain world. His sentences are formal and measured, and his voice carries without loud volume. Most of the time, looking out from his impregnable fortress of numbers, he may as well be speaking in Greek or Russian. The majority members usually grasp only the barest inkling of what he’s talking about, but they do whatever he says.
Listening to Mr. Hanson often brings to mind the most famous federal government Sphinx of recent years. Alan Greenspan once observed that one of his most effective strategies as Fed Chair was to “mumble with great incoherence…I spend a substantial amount of time endeavoring to fend off questions, and worry terribly that I might be too clear.”
Mr. Hanson’s inquisitors are the Board’s minority. Mr. Welty occasionally goes a round with him, but it is the Lone Ranger, Mr. Johnston, who most often challenges the Sphinx’s riddles. Mr. Johnston is also one of those rare lefties. An engineer and math whiz, he often proclaims that he LIKES spreadsheets. Watching his interactions with Mr. Hanson brings me back to my youth on the banks of the St. Croix river. Whenever our family collie would run across a turtle, the dog would invariably become affronted by this freak of nature. It would circle and circle the creature, sniffing and trying its fangs on its unyielding shell.
Tonight, the Lone Ranger tried to crack the tough carapace around the district’s contention that it had $5.4 million extra money lying around to finish up some things left undone (and mistakes made) by the Red Plan. Member Johnston’s chief argument against the real existence of this pot of millions was the claim that about a third of it--$1.9 million--was “saved” money that could be withdrawn from the General Fund.
Johnston passed his own spreadsheets out to the Board. His calculations showed that a large part of the Red Plan savings were, to put it generously, a bit overestimated. Mr. Johnston said “this money--$1.9 million--is coming from General Fund savings…We can not afford this (expenditure.) We have to keep (this money) in the classroom.”
He maintained the district had been pulling millions more out of the General Fund than projected Red Plan savings estimates, and that those estimates were not accurate. He pointed out that the district’s annual energy cost summaries show no reduction in energy expenditures--no savings at all--and he listed other savings projections that also appear to be inaccurate.
Board Chair Seliga-Punyko weighed in with her favorite, frilly refrain: “All these questions have been asked and answered, multiple times!” Pooh-poohing Johnston’s concerns, Chair S.-P. added enthusiastically: “I saw a lot of savings, especially those first few years…We had many savings!”
None of the Red Plan savings claims have been independently verified. The subject is so touchy for administration, even the Sphinx popped out from his shell with a snide, acerbic reply to the Lone Ranger’s queries: “I’m just thoroughly convinced that we’re saving utilities at Woodland Middle School (which has been sold and torn down.)”
At the start of the Red Plan, the public school district had 2,327,295 square feet of building space. Our wily leaders are currently sitting on 2,416,027 square feet--nearly 100,000 square feet more than they started with. The goal of the half billion dollar consolidation plan was to reduce total square footage by 500,000 sq. ft. Even after all the “excess” property is finally sold or given away, 500,000 square feet of space reduction will never happen. No adjustment to this reality has been made to savings claims.
The Lone Ranger moved resolutely on, to another agenda item: district enrollment numbers. More polarized friction filled the boardroom. Former Chair Miernicki took the floor and threw around figures based on some “research.” I wish I had the space to examine all his assertions, but he was correct when he stated that the student exodus from ISD 709 began “long, long before the Red Plan was started.”
One of the selling points for Big Red, however, was that it was supposed to stop and reverse the trend, with “21st century schools.” The numbers show just the opposite has occurred. Enrollment loss accelerated after Dixon entered the scene. ISD 709 suffered another 80-student plunge last month, dropping enrollment to the lowest level in well over half a century. The current enrollment of 8466 is far below the low point of “between 8998 and 9329” predicted by the Red Plan.
Mr. Miernicki remains a proud optimist. With raspy bluster, he declared: “I think a glass is more half full, than half empty!”
A lot of glasses are half full around the Red Plan, and the reddish concoction half-filling them should come with a warning label: NOT SAFE FOR CONSUMPTION.
I’ll adjourn this short, two hour, forty minute meeting on that note.

Loren Martell has been involved in Public School District issues for several years. He wrote the Red Plan report for the State Auditor’s Office and ran for the School Board office.