New school board looks into sweeping changes

(This story originally appeared in the Hesperia Star Tuesday, December 19, 2006)

When Hesperia voters elected three school board candidates supported by the Hesperia Teachers Association on November 7, they were voting for change. And if the new school board's first meeting last week was any indication, they're going to get it.

After saying goodbye to outgoing board members Nellie Gogley, Jack Hamilton and Eric Swanson, new board members Hardy Black, Robert Kirk and Lee Rogers were sworn in and the board organized for the 2006-2007 legislative year. Board member Bruce Minton was chosen as board president for the year and Kirk as vice-president. And then the new board got down to work, with the new board members coming prepared with a full slate of proposed changes to the way the district does business.

The three new members of the five person Hesperia Unified School District board voted to begin meeting three times a month starting in January, are considering changing the academic calendar to match the calendar used by the Apple Valley Unified School District and may eliminate the sixth-grade-only academies.

New board meeting schedule

Black proposed a new school board meeting calendar, which would take the board from one meeting a month to four. After objections by board member Helen Rogers, a compromise was reached and the board voted 3-2 to move to three meetings some months and four on others.

The new meeting schedule is an attempt to shorten the always long meetings, which typically run from 6 p.m. to approximately 9 p.m., not including closed door sessions for personnel and legal matters both before and after the public meeting. Last Monday's meeting ran into triple overtime, with the board voting three times to extend the meeting by 30 minute increments after it reached its official stopping time of 10 p.m. The open portion of the meeting ended just before 11:30 p.m., but school board members and staff did not get out of their closed-door meeting until after 1 a.m.

Helen Rogers objected on a number of issues, beginning with a religious objection.

"In our church, Monday is reserved for families," Helen Rogers said Friday. Like Black, she is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. "I didn't mind missing one Monday a month, but three a month?"

She also objected to further cutting into the time of school district staff by having them prepare for more meetings each month.

"I felt like the cabinet would be too tied up trying to make agendas," Helen Rogers said. Agenda information packets can be up to 700 pages in size, she said. "I don't want to take them away from their duties, which are equally important or even more important. … Let them do their jobs, instead of preparing agendas all the time."

The initial calendar also conflicted with faculty and staff vacation times, which are guaranteed to them by labor contracts. The compromise schedule approved by the board eliminates the conflicting dates.

"I can't speak for others, I can only speak for myself, but I think it's going to be overwhelming," she said. "I'm sure that the ones who just got elected are just trying to make sure they know what's going on, and I don't blame them."

Black was unavailable for comment at press time.

Mission Crest Elementary bid in question

The school board was scheduled to approve a $14,272,000 bid by W.D. Gott Construction to build Mission Crest Elementary School, which is scheduled to be open for the 2007-2008 school year.

Not so fast, said board member Lee Rogers: W.D. Gott Construction is owned by the husband of Diana Gott, the director of facilities for the district. Although district staff said the district's legal staff had signed off on the legality of the deal, she wanted a second opinion.

"Government Code 1090 says that any member of an organization receiving remunerations or benefits from a contract is illegal," she said Friday. "I am not accusing anybody … I'm just asking for legal counsel."

The legal opinion should be ready this week, Lee Rogers said.

"It shouldn't have any impact on [the opening of Mission Crest]. If it is, it's going to be minimal."

A new school calendar?

By the January 22 board meeting, district staff will come back with analysis of a proposal by Kirk to change the HUSD school schedule to match that used by the Apple Valley Unified School District, which has one to two week breaks between each quarter of the school year.

"I've talked with administrators and teachers in Apple Valley, and they speak very highly of the calendar," Kirk said Friday. "About the time that students and teachers start to get fatigued, they get a break. So what I'm hoping is that the test stores will go up and teachers won't burn out.

A 12-person committee made up of teachers, administrators and parents will be looking into the proposal on an "expedited" basis, so that the board can render a decision on the school calendar with plenty of time for students' parents to plan around the possible new school schedule.

Schoolhouse democracy

Kirk also has the district staff investigating moving HUSD schools to a site-based management model, where teachers and support staff would have more say over how each school operates.

"You have teachers elect members to a leadership team and they work with the administrators," Kirk said. "The people in the trenches know where the shoe pinches. If they are involved in the decision-making process, they'll have more buy-in and they'll give it 110 percent instead of having [changes] imposed on them."

Teachers and support staff cannot vote themselves into being held unaccountable for the school's performance.

"Their test scores have to go up. They don't make the decisions and that's the end of it, no," Kirk said. State and federal mandates will still dictate many elements of how each school operates. "Test-taking, that's not something that they're going to take off their plate. Benchmarking, that's something they have to do, whether they like it or not."

Sixth-grade academies in the crosshairs

The HUSD operates two schools that only serve sixth graders, Cypress Academy and Oxford Academy. At Monday's meeting, the board heard from school administrators, teachers and parents praising the initiative, which was started to allow elementary schools to spread out into formerly sixth grade classrooms and relieve overcrowding. But the presentation did not seem to sway the new members of the school board, who repeatedly commented on the impracticality of the two academies.

"We have overcrowded schools, we have overcrowded campuses, we have to build schools," Kirk said Friday. "The question is where do you get the most bang for your buck."

Instead of the current system, Kirk would shift students around and create new schools that focused on physical education, the arts or sciences.

"I'd like to have more K-6 schools with more choice schools for parents," Kirk said. "It's not that sixth-grade schools are a bad idea, it's how much money do you have to spend?

"The ultimate destiny for Oxford was always to turn it into Ranchero and maybe build another school called Oxford at another site. [The current Cypress Academy] could be another elementary school."

Parents of fifth graders don't need to start questioning which schools their students will be attending next year yet, Kirk said.

"This is a work in progress, and I can't tell you which way it's going to go," he said.

The next full meeting of the Hesperia Unified School District school board will be January 22 at 6 p.m. in Sultan Hall at Sultana High School. A facilities workshop will be held at the same location on January 17.

Beau Yarbrough can be reached at 956-7108 or at beau@hesperiastar.com.