Last year I filed a federal complaint against the school district because they would not allow discussion in a school board meeting about the revolving door of teachers in my neighborhood schools (Title I Schools). The federal investigation is ongoing. We did however, have a very productive discussion on this issue 17 months after I made the request, hey, but who’s counting…..

See previous postings for background on the OCR Complaint:

Ineffective Teachers –Part I

Ineffective Teachers –Part II

Michael with Duane Bourdeaux at the Equity Leadership Team Meeting

The school district held it third Equity Team Leadership meeting on Thursday –June 26, 20014.

Here is the agenda for the meeting and the handout

The stated purpose of the Equity Leadership Team:

“As a member of the Equity Team, you will participate in a monthly professional learning community focusing on and being accountable for personal, professional and institutional engagement in equity work. We will meet to deepen our learning of educational inequities and how to eliminate them by having the courageous conversations that address them, and participating in reflective, equity driven exercises. We will use action research methodologies and equity audits to identify successful practices within our system and impact all students by building an equitable, quality education”.

A significant portion of the meeting centered on the need for the district to create a new position titled Associate Superintendent of Educational Equity and Diversity.

On June 3, 2014, I presented the following letter to school board:

CREATE: Associate Superintendent of Educational Equity and Diversity

The other part of the meeting centered on Equity Audits and what are they. Although our student achievement plan, Utah Consolidate Plan, Budget etc… state we have been doing Equity Audits for the last four years, we have nothing to show for it. At this point, it appears that they were conducted in 2011.

I proposed that we start conducting the Audits so that our actions can begin to match our rhetoric.

Here is an overview of areas that Equity Audits can be conducted:

An equity audit is a data collection activity that spans all areas/facets of a school or district environment. Three main categories are listed below:

Teacher/Instructional Quality Equity – The purpose is to determine how teacher quality is distributed within a school or district. Disaggregate the following indicators by courses taught, level of courses taught, academic levels of students taught, etc. Gather these data for multiple years if possible to understand patterns across time.

• Teacher Education Level
• Teacher Experience
• Teacher Mobility
• Teacher Certification
  Programmatic Equity – The purpose is to look at quality of programs and access/exclusion for certain students/groups of students. Prior to collecting data on the areas below, determine the total school enrollment and disaggregate by gender, ethnicity, and socio-economic status. Then, find out the number of students served in each area below and disaggregate by gender, ethnicity, and socio-economic status (provide both number and percentages). Gather these data for multiple years if possible to understand patterns across time.

• Special Education
• Gifted and Talented
• Bilingual Education
• Student Discipline Actions /Programs
  Achievement Equity – The purpose is to look at student achievement across multiple achievement indicators. Disaggregate the following achievement data by gender, ethnicity, and socio-economic status (provide both number and percentages). Gather these data for multiple years if possible to understand patterns across time.

• Dropout Rates
• High School Graduation Tracks
• SAT/ACT/AP/IB Results

  District-Level Equity – The purpose is to determine whether differences exist across individual schools within a district according to ethnic composition and/or economic conditions. Participants interested in conducting a district-wide equity audit should collect information on any/all of the categories above in each school and compare the data.

LINKS TO PAST MEETINGS: 

2nd Equity Leadership Team Meeting for 2014! (6/5/14)

http://michaelclara.com/2nd-equity-leadership-team-meeting-for-2014/

(1^st Equity Leadership Team Meeting) Associate Superintendent of Educational Equity?

http://michaelclara.com/associate-superintendent-of-educational-equity/

Photo Credit: (Chris Detrick | The Salt Lake Tribune)

Lawmakers: Is Salt Lake City School District serving west side students?

BY RAY PARKER
THESALT LAKETRIBUNE
PUBLISHED: AUGUST 27, 2013 09:32PM
UPDATED: AUGUST 27, 2013 10:18PM

Utah lawmakers on an Education Task Force questioned Tuesday how well the Salt Lake City School District is serving children in west-side schools, encouraging school board member Michael Clara to continue investigating.

Clara filed a complaint with the federal Office of Civil Rights in February, asserting there are too many inexperienced and ineffective teachers in west-side schools. He has clashed with
board members over his attempts to discuss that topic, as well as the dropout rate for Latino students, graduation rates, the district’s recent tax increase and other issues.

Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, said he had asked for data about Salt Lake City’s inexperienced and ineffective teachers but could not understand the district’s confusing
response.

“I haven’t been able to get to the bottom of it, and I’ve dealt with school finance for 35 years,” said Stephenson, who serves on the Senate Education Committee. “There’s a disproportionate number of ineffective teachers on the west side.”

The district’s “ineffective” designation is based on student test scores and is used in school improvement plans. Sen. Stuart Reid, R-Ogden, said when he served on the Salt Lake City Council, it was difficult to get attention for the needs of the Rose Park neighborhood on the city’s west side. “I say bully for you because it will get left out,” said Reid, chair of the Senate Education Committee.

Sen. Wayne Niederhauser, R-Sandy, and Sen. Steve Urquhart, R-St. George, said districts statewide need to get veteran teachers into schools with at-risk students. Urquhart suggested districts could “use extra incentives.”

“Every student should receive an equal education but they don’t,” Urquhart said in an interview. “Move those gifted teachers into the lower performing schools.”

Clara spoke during a public comment session as the Legislature’s Education Task Force discussed how education should be
governed. Clara is calling for the ouster of Salt Lake City School District Superintendent McKell Withers, alleging Withers is taking over the board’s responsibilities.

“The superintendent runs the board instead of the members running it,” Clara said in an interview. “I’m not able to address the
issues my constituents bring up.” He added: “[The school board has] been on autopilot, so of course they think they’re a good board, but they don’t have 52 percent of their students dropping out in their neighborhoods.”

After he repeated his criticism at the task force meeting, Rep. Carol Spackman Moss, D-Holladay, questioned Clara’s “inflammatory statements about the superintendent.” Noting she worked with Withers when he was a school principal, Moss said Withers has a reputation for putting students first, even
when others protest.

Clara directed her to his website, Michaelclara.com, where he chronicles his disagreements with Withers and the board.
“I documented it on my blog because of the skepticism,” Clara replied to Moss. Withers, who has been the district chief for 10 years, could not be reached for comment late Tuesday.

“Dr. Withers was not in attendance at the meeting,” district spokesman Jason Olsen wrote in an email. “Mr. Clara was speaking only  for himself. He was not representing the Salt Lake City School District board of education or Salt Lake City School District.”

Tensions that have been simmering since Clara joined the board eight months ago surfaced at the board’s Aug. 6 truth in taxation
hearing. Members started arguing when Clara started to pass around a three-page letter explaining why he was against a planned property tax increase: He felt he was lacking information and opposed a one-time payment to Withers, which Clara considered a bonus. “Call for the question!” member Laurel Heath Young repeatedly said, speaking over Clara, who also continued to speak. Board president Kristi Swett cut off the discussion and called for the vote, which was 6-1.

Board member Rosemary Emery protested in an email to other board members after the meeting. “Michael was treated unbelievably rudely,” Emery said. “They’ve been rude to me but not like that. I do think the superintendent has
co-opted the board.”

Within days of the vote, Clara had created a YouTube video that showed that portion of board meeting, with his commentary added. Veteran board members, some who have served for more than a decade, have refused to comment about the board meeting, Clara or the issues he is raising, including Swett and vice president Heather Bennett, who both represent Salt Lake City’s east side.
Clara and Emery said more attention needs to be paid to Salt Lake City’s west side, which they said includes more low-income
neighborhoods that struggle with gangs.

Member Tiffany Sandberg, who also represents Salt Lake City’s west side, said district documents show a Latino high school dropout rate of 39 percent districtwide, not the 52 percent reported by Clara. Clara explains his reasoning on his website.
“There’s a lot frustration on the board,” Sandberg said. “I truly believe Michael Clara has good intentions and a good heart but the methods that he uses to try and accomplish things can be counterproductive.”

Rparker@sltrib.com

Twitter/Facebook @RayUtah

Link to Article

School Board President: Kristi Swett

In our July 9, 2013, School Board retreat up at Snowbird, I brought up the issue of the OCR complaint in the midst of audible sighs from a fellow board members Laurel Young and Heather Bennett.

I have already documented the Superintendent’s reaction in a previous blog posting . In this blog posting, I would like to highlight the Board President’s inaction:

2013-07-09-Board-MeetingOCR1      04/09/13 School Board Meeting (audio)

Board member Tiffany Sandberg who was elected with me this past November, asked for the data on the turn over rate of teachers in Title 1 schools.

The superintendent claims the data cannot be released. The board president dances around the issue by stating the following:

• “we look at this issue all the time”
• “we talked about it, you were not on the board at that time”
• “the other part of it too, in my opinion….our Title 1 schools are filled with phenomenal people”

As the board president indicated they had talked about this issue prior to me being on the school board. It came up in the January meeting of 2012:

010312SBPortion     01/03/12 School Board Meeting

In the audio, you will hear the board president state that she is alarmed at the high concentration of ‘ineffective teachers’ in Title I schools.

She exclaimed:

• “obviously this is alarming”
• “What do we do?”
• “What are we empowered to do?”

In that meeting they were shown this power point slide by Christine Marriott form the district’s assessment department:

This document states that “students in Title I schools have a five times chance of being with a marginal or ineffective teacher”.

Here is a word document version of the slide:

Link to Word Doc: 27%

The flash-point for the OCR COMPLAINT  happen when I asked in the February 2013, meeting why there was such a high number of ineffective teachers concentrated in the Title I schools in my neighborhood.

The response was that it as due more to ‘inexperienced’ teachers as a result of the high turn over rate of teachers in those schools.

The point to be made here, is that the board president stated last week that they have data on this issue for the past three years. We have them on record discussing this issue over a year ago. Yet, they have taken no actions to rectify the situation and have not demonstrated a desire to even talk about it.

The board president’s reaction to this issue is a perfect illustration of the mindset we are dealing with. For some odd reason the current School Board will ‘talk’ about an issue, sprinkle it with self congratulatory acclamations about the adults, and somehow feel they have met their obligation to the students of our District.

All the while, the original problem remains in place, allowed to spread like a plague. With this type of mentality in play, we should not be surprised that the dropout rate for ethnic minority students continues to soar.

Page 1

The attached letter is in response to a letter I received earlier this month from the School District’s attorney, claiming that the board wanted to ‘dialogue’ about the issues raised in the OCR complaint. The original letter that solicited this response is included as enclosure #1. It is also listed as another Blog Post.

PDF Link of Michael Clara Letter to Attorney

PDF Link to Enclosures 1-8

PDF Link to Enclosures 9-14

Page 1

Six months later the so called School Board Responds. I say “so called” because the attorney claims to be speaking for the School Board. Yet, I am a member of the School Board and don’t recall any meeting where we discussed this issue or voted on it and came to a consensus on a direction that we should pursue. Yet the attorney claims to be speaking for the School Board.

Ironically, I wanted to discuss this issue in the February School Board meeting. The majority of the board and the superintendent did not. Six months later we have come full circle; the “Board” now wants a dialogue albeit through an attorney.

This is the problem with the culture in the current School Board; they have no idea how to function as a DELIBERATIVE BODY because they feel threatened by questions and have no clue on how to weigh everyone’s views based on merit.

PDF Link (Two Pages)