Not All Criticism is 'Defamation'

Note: To put this piece in context, it is a response to an article in the Iowa City Press-Citizen: Holly Hines, "School Officials' Emails Raise Free Speech Concerns; First Amendment Experts Say Legal Threats May Amount to Intimidation," Iowa City Press-Citizen, June 24, 2017, p. A1. The story reported and discussed, among other things, that citizens were concerned that they might be sued if they criticized the Iowa City Community School District superintendent. (And see also, Holly Hines, "External Reviewer Sought for School District; Culture Concerning Whistleblowers is Under Investigation," Iowa City Press-Citizen, September 1, 2016, p. A1.)

Without expressing a view regarding the justification for the criticism, I thought a brief statement of the law of defamation might be useful -- as set forth below. Following Holly Hines story, and my explanation of defamation, the Press-Citizen editorial board published the following editorial: "Alter Culture of Fear in School District," Iowa City Press-Citizen, July 1, 2017, p. 7A (the Press-Citizen only publishes an opinion page on Wednesdays and Saturdays.) Here is my brief explanation on June 28th:

Is Superintendent Criticism 'Defamation'?
Nicholas Johnson
Iowa City Press-Citizen, June 28, 2017, p. 7A
There’s a local issue regarding limits on citizens’ criticism of school superintendents. Can the critics be sued for defamation?

I won’t take sides on whether the criticism is warranted. Moreover, social norms may be more relevant than “the law.” In either case, one’s reputation is a thing of value. [Citizen Julie VanDyke speaking to ICCSD School Board members; photo credit: Sandhya Dirks/Iowa Public Radio]

Not all criticism is defamatory. There must be an unambiguous, clearly false, factual statement (not just opinion), that causes measurable harm to one’s reputation among a relevant group (such as potential employers or customers).

The false assertion that a superintendent stole $97,000 from the schools’ playground fund could be defamation. Saying, “I think he’s doing a lousy job” would not be.

Moreover, the Supreme Court has ruled that while citizens need only show falsity, public officials must prove “that the statement was made ... with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.” Why? Because protection of political speech lies at the heart of First Amendment guarantees.

As Justice Brenan wrote in New York Times v. Sullivan, “[we have] a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.”

This is for newspaper readers only, not legal advice. If you’re involved in a defamation case, get a lawyer.

Nicholas Johnson
Iowa City
# # #

First Thoughts on 911 -- 15 Years Later

From 1998 through 2001 I added to my law school teaching and research obligations the tasks of a local school board member -- plus an every-two-week column on K-12 issues in the local paper. As it happened, the final column was written following September 11, 2001, and published September 25. Rereading it recently, I was struck with how little the truths have changed during the course of our multi-trillion-dollar 15 year "war on terror."

For this September 11th, the fifteenth anniversary of that awful day, it seems worthwhile to share the thoughts that came to mind so soon after those events. Here they are. -- N.J.

Teach Our Children Tolerant Ways

Nicholas Johnson

Iowa City Press-Citizen, "Opinion," September 25, 2001, p. 9A
Oct. 4 [2001] will mark the 44th anniversary of a shock to our nation. Not a deafening explosion. A faint beep from a 183-pound, basketball-sized orbiting satellite. Sputnik meant the Soviet Union was ahead of us in the space race.

Our response? Something called “The National Defense Education Act” – emphasis on “defense.” More money for math, science and foreign language instruction. This time let’s include social studies.

This is the 79th and last column in a series begun Oct. 12, 1998. It was originally planned to be thanks for those who elected me to the School Board, my fellow board members, administrators and staff. A review of the board’s accomplishments. Its remaining agenda. My continuing Web page. And an announcement of the John Haefner Social Studies Award I’ve created through our district’s foundation.

Two weeks of shock, grief and anger from terrorists’ barbaric attacks on our nation changed that.

President Bush urged us to get back to what we were doing before Sept. 11. What was he doing that morning? Campaigning for his education bill.

It’s time for the president and Congress to get back to it.

Some call for a U.S. revenge of violence. Others plead for greater understanding. Either way, education is a major part of the answer.

We have the world’s finest intelligence gathering technology. What we don’t have are enough folks who can translate those millions of conversations and e-mails into English.

How can you spy, let alone infiltrate if you don’t know the language? If you can’t find the country on an outline map? If you know nothing of its people – their history, culture, economic conditions and religion?

We have more military power than many nations combined. And yet we’re still vulnerable. Not to the wars of the last century. Those we could still fight and win. Vulnerable to the wars of this century. Wars without nations, front lines and tanks. Wars fought with cardboard box openers and commercial airliners.

A terrorist used to be “someone who has a bomb but doesn’t have a plane.” Now terrorists use planes as bombs.

It’s good to tighten airline security. But terrorists have many alternatives to bombing buildings with hijacked planes.

Terrorism is not about “winning wars.” It’s not even about death and desgtruction, as such. Terrorism is about fomenting terror.

Terror comes from the innovative and unexpected attack. A bridge, nuclear power plant or natural gas pipeline here. An electric power grid or Internet there. Atom bombs in backpacks. Poisoned air in a subway one day. A water supply another.

Such attacks are easy for perpetrators willing to die. Especially in countries where individual liberties are highly desired and valued.

We don’t want to turn America into an armed camp. But even if we imposed martial law we could not eliminate our vulnerability.

Retaliation may make us feel better. But it will likely increase terrorism.

So what can we do?

Something our school district’s already doing. Encourage children to celebrate – rather than hate – the community’s and world’s diversity.

Prejudice against all Muslims is abhorrent. Attacking Sikhs, thinking them Muslims, reflects basic ignorance as well. We must provide more understanding than do our corporate media about others’ living conditions. Whom do they blame for their misery? Their oppressive regimes? What attracts them to a bin Laden?

America is a generous nation. But it’s also capable of overt and covert government and corporate practices that oppress and exploit others for convenience and profit.

Practices often seen as arrogant. Policies reflecting ignorance of others’ cultures.

Such ignorance contributed to our misjudgments in Vietnam, the hostage taking in Iran and this terrorist attack. Not to mention failecd global marketing efforts.

Our students will be better able than we to deal with the globalism and terrorism we leave them. Is education the only answer? Of course not. But it’s an imperative beginning. And it’s something we can do.

Goodbye, and thanks for the opportunity to serve.
_______________
Nicholas Johnson is an Iowa City School Board member. More information is available on his Web site: www.nicholasjohnson.org.

# # #

Racism in Our Schools -- and Everywhere Else

May 9, 2015, 1:15 p.m.

I'm a very, . . . lucky guy. I've got a lot going for me: I'm healthy, I'm relatively young, I'm white -- which, thank God for that . . .. That is a huge leg up. Are you kidding me? Oh, God, I love being white. I really do. Seriously, if you're not white, you're missing out. Because [being white] is thoroughly good.

Let me be clear, by the way. I'm not saying that white people are better. I'm saying that being white is clearly better. Who could even argue? If it was an option, I would re-up every year. "Oh, yeah, I'll take 'white' again, absolutely. I've been enjoying that. I'm gonna stick with white, thank you."

-- Louis C.K., "On Being White"

Laughter is one way of dealing with deep pain. Action is another.

While the rest of the nation has been coming to the realization that racism in police-community relations is not limited to one or two cities, the Iowa City Community School District, with the leadership of Kingsley Botchway, is taking action with regard to its schools' endemic challenges of race and racism -- symbolized with the disparity of a faculty that is 4% minority teachers serving a student population that is 35% minority students. [Photo credit: David Scrivner, Iowa City Press-Citizen.]

"While the Iowa City Community School District . . . attempts to diversify its staff and create equitable environments for students, some experts say . . . the district might face barriers in recruiting minorities, making long-term cultural changes in classrooms and funding staff changes." Holly Hines, "Expert: Equity Plan a Postive, Challenging Step; Administrators, Teachers, National Official Discuss Elements of ICCSD Equity Proposal," Iowa City Press-Citizen, May 9, 2015, p. A1.

To get a realistic sense of the potential "barriers" confronting our school district in this mission one needs a realistic understanding of racism in America. Not just racism 50 or 200 years ago, but racism yesterday, still today, and likely tomorrow -- racism everywhere.

As Brave New Films reports:

Thousands of resumes were mailed to employers. They were identical except for the names. Black-sounding names were 50% less likely to be called back.

Black people are charged prices roughly $700 higher than white people when buying [the same] cars.

Multiple studies show black drivers are twice as likely to get pulled over [for the same driving behavior].

Black clients are shown 17.7% fewer houses for sale.

Marijuana use is equal between blacks and whites. Yet black people are 4 times more likely to be arrested.

Black people are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of white people.

Doctors did not inform black patients as often as white ones about an important heart procedure. [And see, Damon Tweedy, "The Case for Black Doctors," New York Times, May 17, 2015, p. SR1.]

White legislators did not respond as frequently to constituents with black sounding names -- in both political parties.

If this isn't racism, what is? Racism isn't over.

"Racism is Real" promo, Brave New Films. [The promo closes with citations to its list of sources for these assertions.]

For some more insight into the depths of what we're dealing with here -- both the causes and the cures -- see, Nicholas Kristof, "Our Biased Brains," New York Times, May 7, 2015, p. A29 (e.g., "In one study, 3-month-old white infants were shown photos of faces of white adults and black adults; they preferred the faces of whites. For 3-month-old black infants living in Africa, it was the reverse.")

(Ironically, Kristof continues, "Researchers find that in contrast to other groups, AfricanAmericans do not have an unconscious bias toward their own. From young children to adults, they are essentially neutral and favor neither whites nor blacks. [Harvard psychology professor Mahzarin] Banaji and other scholars suggest that this is because even young AfricanAmerican children somehow absorb the social construct that white skin is prestigious and that black skin isn’t. In one respect, that is unspeakably sad; in another, it’s a model of unconscious race neutrality.")

Apparently racism is prevalent from the time we are three months old, throughout every institution and aspect of our culture. It may even be embedded in our DNA. Can any Iowa City resident or School Board member deny that it may be involved to at least some degree in our discussions of school boundaries? Can President Obama's hate-filled opponents deny that racism may play at least some teeny-tiny role in their opposition to everything he advocates -- even policies they once proposed? (The Southern Poverty Law Center's annual measure of hate groups in the U.S. indicates that while their number ranged from 131 to 149 during 2001 to 2008, during President Obama's presidency, from 2010 through 2014, the number ranged from 824 to 1360.)

I am about as familiar as a white boy can be with the evil consequences of racism, as a result of spending most of the 1950s in Texas and throughout the South -- with a poll tax designed to further reduce blacks voting, black and white water fountains and restrooms, "No Colored" signs in restaurant and store windows, a lawsuit required to open a law school to blacks, and crosses burned in the yards of the federal judges for whom I worked in their efforts to right these wrongs.

Such experiences helped shaped my reaction as an F.C.C. commissioner upon discovering that the broadcasting industry the Commission was supposed to regulate "in the public interest" was one of, if not the, country's most racist and sexist. I pushed for, and the Commission achieved, increased employment of African-Americans and women in front of the cameras and in broadcast management.

I was made aware of my own color consciousness during the process of writing this. Taking a break to feed fish in a backyard pond, my eye caught the flashing lights of a parked police car. There was no indication that the African-American who had been stopped was being treated with anything other that the utmost civility and respect. And yet, given recent events, my initial wondering and concern for him caused me to question whether I would have been similarly apprehensive had he been white.

There's hope. As Nicholas Kristof reports:

[W]e can resist a predisposition for bias against other groups.

One strategy that works is seeing images of heroic African-Americans; afterward, whites and Asians show less bias, a study found. Likewise, hearing a story in which a black person rescues someone from a white assailant reduces anti-black bias in subsequent testing. It’s not clear how long this effect lasts.

Deep friendships, especially romantic relationships with someone of another race, also seem to mute bias — and that, too, has implications for bringing young people together to forge powerful friendships.

“If you actually have friendships across race lines, you probably have fewer biases,” Banaji says. “These are learned, so they can be unlearned.”

I wish Iowa Law grad Kingsley Botchway good luck in his efforts working with the School District's administrators, faculty, staff and students. But the fact is, every single one of us has a lot of homework we need tending to when it comes to racism throughout America.

# # #

ICCSD: School Boundaries Simple Three-Step

April 25, 2014, 8:15 a.m.

Note and Summary: This blog essay was first posted two years ago. As Iowa City School District school boundary lines are once again in the news (e.g., Holly Hines, "Parents Want Kids Walking to School; Concerned Proposed Longfellow Boundaries Would Limit That Option," Iowa City Press-Citizen, April 25, 2014, p. A1), it seemed worthwhile to post it again. In brief, it's a suggestion that (1) to ease stakeholders' buy-in to any proposal the changes' effective date might better be six to seven years in the future, and (2) rather than regularly returning to these divisive and disruptive boundary issues when changes are needed, the School Board might be well advised to adopt a flexible boundary policy (with two, rather than one, boundary lines for each school), giving the Board, and its superintendent, the ability to respond to modest changes in population over time that only affect parents and children who are new to the District.

School Board Alternatives to Procrastination and Frustration
Who goes to which K-12 schools and why?

There are 15,000 school districts and school boards across the country confronting those questions.

[Photo of prior, not current, ICCSD Board. Photo credit: Nicholas Johnson.]

Apparently the Iowa City Community School District (ICCSD) school board is now doing so again.

Here's a three-step process for easing everyone's pain.

Step One. Decide to do it. You. The Board members. Not a community committee or a consultant or the Superintendent. Not a series of open forums prayerfully in search of what one board member called "a solution that satisfies the whole community." Alesha L. Crews, School board members talk about next steps; Say portable buildings a short-term solution, should not be permanent," Iowa City Press-Citizen, May 17, 2012, p. A3.

You are the buffer among the District's stakeholders -- students, parents, administrators, teachers, staff, property tax payers, and citizens. Face it, you'll never satisfy them all.

Only you can create "fairness" for the poor and working poor and lower middle class District parents, when the contests arise in which their interests are pitted against those of our most economically and political powerful families.

Remember, this is a public school system. No one but you has a right to dictate policy. Dissatisfied students and parents who want more absolute control over the details have options, from private schools, to other school districts, to home schooling.

Consider their wishes? Of course. But to think, as one board member put it, that it is "absolutely critical that we don’t ignore anyone’s needs," is a classic example of the triumph of hope over experience. It will inevitably produce the K-12 equivalent of the line that "a camel is a horse built by committee."

Nothing against camels mind you, but only the Board can create a rational, efficient, school system in which all the pieces fit, work together, and optimize the desired output -- increased numbers of students graduating closer to their academic potential.

As Nike says, "Just do it."

Step Two. Think specifically about District goals, not generally about drawing lines.

This is where "if you don't know where you want to go, the odds are very high that you'll never get there" comes into play.

Here are some of the destinations you might want to think about:

(a) Are you willing to take your time, or do you have to do it right now? You could announce a new approach to redistricting that will take effect six or seven years from now. That would eliminate most of the emotional opposition from students and parents affected by a shorter time in which to accommodate change. Most of those who will be affected by a future plan don't yet have kids in school -- or haven't even yet moved to Iowa City.

(b) How much flexibility, or rigidity, do you want? Flexibility is a variable that can be turned up or down, like a rheostat controlling the lighting in a dining room. Do you want fixed, immovable lines -- until the next time you have a redistricting crisis? Or would you like to give the Superintendent, and yourselves, some flexibility?

For example, you could provide (and, if (a) is adopted, not until, say, seven years from now) that (1) once assigned to an elementary school a student could finish at that school, but that (2) there would be two, not just one, geographical areas feeding that school. [i] One would be immediately contiguous to the school, a small enough area that virtually no projection of increased population would result in more students living there than the school could properly hold. The children of families living in, or moving into, that area would be assigned to that school. [ii] The other, larger area, would give the Board and Superintendent the flexibility to assign students living there to any one of three or four closest schools. (Of course, once assigned, under principle (a) the student could finish there.) Thus, as new families moved into that larger area they might know the probabilities of where their children would be assigned, but they would not have a firm commitment of a school from the District. (For more discussion and detail, see, e.g., "Disparity in Class Sizes: Simple Solution Rejected," October 13, 2010.)

(c) Settle upon your position with regard to the demographic balance represented in the assignment of "free and reduced lunch" students to the schools. You may want greater disparity than we now have, less, about the same, or have no position, leaving the outcome to chance -- the latter in all probability a policy that will produce an increase in the disparity. Just make up your minds; hopefully with specific numbers.

(d) There are many other variables you can think about, resolve, and announce. Do I have personal preferences on some of these District goals? Of course. But that's irrelevant. These are the Board's decisions to make. My focus at the moment is not on what you decide but what it is you decide about.

By laying out your own very specific metrics for where you say the District is headed, and providing that they will have little to no impact on today's students and parents, because they won't take effect immediately, you provide stability for the future, and virtually eliminate the emotional opposition.

Step Three. Evolve toward your goals. With a little advance individual reading and thinking, Steps One and Two should be capable of resolution with one or two weekends of Board-member-only workshops. Remember, it's your decisions we're talking about, not those of some consultant. Once you announce the outcome, where the District is headed, it will be possible -- without forcing decisions, but as needs for tweaking arise (like now!) -- to make those decisions consistent with your longer range plan (without imposing it wholesale ahead of schedule).

When I confront computer frustration, which seems to happen with some regularity, my computer consultant son, Gregory (http://ResourcesForLife.com) usually advises, "Well, Dad, there are three steps," following which he puts in simple, three-step language what it is that his cyberlaw professor father should do to get on with his personal life in our digital world.

I thought this "Three Simple Steps to School Redistricting" might be helpful for our local School Board as well. We'll see.
# # #

Open Mikes at Open Meetings?

February 12, 2014, 6:30 a.m.

Note: This blog essay was the source of the material in the following Iowa City Press-Citizen op ed column:

Public Comments About Public Comments Guidelines
Nicholas Johnson
Iowa City Press-Citizen
February 15, 2014
The Iowa City Community School Board, commendably, endeavors to govern through enunciated policies. But sparks flew at Tuesday’s meeting during the public’s comments about public comments guidelines from the board.

Let’s put the issues in context.

• 1: “Open Meetings” don’t require “open mikes.” The law requires the school board to permit the public to attend its meetings (subject to specific exceptions). It does not require the board to permit the public to speak at those meetings.

• 2: Board members are volunteers. They have limited time to tend to the board business the law requires they address in open board meetings. Doing that business is the meetings’ primary purpose.

• 3: The board needs stakeholder input. There are many reasons why. (a) It is of the essence of a self-governing democracy that students, parents, teachers and others be heard. (b) Elected officials are responsible to constituents. (c) Board members’ decisions should be informed (though not dictated) by public comments — especially when an agenda item has limited prior opportunity for public input.

• 4: We need “public citizens.” Journalists can’t do it all. The public would be better off if all school boards, city councils, county boards and legislative committees had a few people following their work like our school board does. You don’t have to approve all of their tactics to know that the board and public would be worse off without our public citizens’ research and tenacity. In fact, think about picking your own agency to track.

• 5: Alternative opportunities. Input’s not limited to meetings. Consider talking to board members, sending them email or letters. The board might have a website to display public comments and interactive listening sessions. If board members’ responses reflect occasional modifications of prior positions, these alternatives can reduce (though not eliminate) the need and desire for discussion during board meetings.

• 6: The guidelines. There were two categories of public objection to the guidelines: some involved specific language, others a “slippery slope” concern of greater restrictions to come.

• a: School boards, like legislative committees and judges, have the inherent right, and responsibility, to maintain decorum in their workplace. Judges don’t need detailed regulations; an ignored warning risks contempt of court. School boards can’t fine or jail for disruptive behavior, but they can apply common sense — and even remove individuals if necessary.

• b: Guidelines’ language should be sufficiently precise to be clear without excessive detail. Even Iowa’s first speed limits were simply “reasonable and proper.”

• c: Allowing public comment at the beginning, rather than the end of meetings, is just plain thoughtful. As for time, the board could declare that time for comments, in total and for each speaker, will vary depending on the number of people who want to speak, how often that speaker has spoken, the public interest in a topic, and the amount of board business.

• d: Having speakers “sign in,” speak one at a time, and from the podium, can promote order and improve television coverage.

• e: Avoid vague standards regarding the content of speakers’ statements. Saying comments must involve “matters of public concern,” expressed with “respect and decorum” is both too narrow and overly broad. The same can be said for the guidelines’ specificity regarding punishments for violations. Certainly speakers should not be prohibited from criticizing the board and administration, or for using occasionally colorful language. Some content-based restrictions could even run afoul of the First Amendment.

This challenge can be met. In the end, it is a matter of balance and common sense — something for which Iowans are noted. ._______________ Nicholas Johnson who served on the Iowa City school board, 1998-2001, maintains www.nicholasjohnson.org and the blog http://FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com.

The original blog essay follows:

A Discussion About Discussion

As occasionally happens at Iowa City Community School District School Board meetings, all hell broke loose last night. Gregg Hennigan, "I.C. School Board Meeting Gets Heated; Proposed Public Comment Guidelines Draw Several Rebukes; No Vote Taken," The Gazette, Feb. 12, 2014, p. A11 ("Discussion got fiery last night as the Iowa City school board debated the first reading of new guidelines on public comment at meetings."); Holly Hines, "Speaking Policy Sparks ICCSB Debate," Iowas City Press-Citizen, Feb. 12, 2014, p. A1. [Photo: ICCSD School Board members in meeting. Not the current Board.]

In brief, the Board, which endeavors to govern through enunciated policies, struggled with how to handle public comments at its meetings and came up with proposed "guidelines" (set forth in full at the bottom of this blog essay). The guidelines got their "first reading" at last evening's meeting, whereupon the spontaneous public comments about the guidelines for public comments got a little raucous.

Here's how Hennigan described the Board's dilemma in balancing (1) the opportunity for public input at Board meetings, on the one hand, against (2) a felt need to maintain a tone of civility, a sense of order, and avoidance of a few dominating the discussion time:

[S]ome board members and school officials have indicated it's a couple of people in particular that they consider problems [naming them]. Both have run for but failed to get elected to school board, with [one] narrowly losing the last two elections. Both attend almost every board meeting and speak several times each on various agenda items. And both typically are harshly critical of board or administrative decisions and sometimes get personal with their comments. At a December meeting . . . one person submitted speaking forms for six items, and another, 11."

As dramatic as last evening's Board meeting apparently was, and as juicy as the news coverage it can provide may be, there are serious issues here that require a little context and reflection. This is a brief attempt. [Photo: public attending ICCSD Board hearing; not last evening.]

(1) "Open Meetings" don't require "Open Mikes." The law requires the school board permit the public to attend its meetings (subject to specific exceptions). It does not require that the board permit members of the public to speak at those meetings.

(2) The primary purpose of board meetings is board business. Because the board has work that it must do, as a board (both as a matter of law, and of good governance), and because board members are volunteers who have limited time to give to board business, the primary function of board meetings is to provide an opportunity for board members to be able to do board business.

(3) The board needs public input. There are many reasons why it is desirable for board members to hear from, and interact with, the school district’s stakeholders – students, parents, teachers, other employees, officials from other public bodies, and taxpayers. (a) It is of the essence of a self-governing democracy. (b) Elected officials have a responsibility to their constituents. (c) Board members’ positions and decisions should be informed (though not dictated) by public opinion. (d) Politically, listening to one’s constituents may be a necessary prerequisite to reelection. These considerations are especially weighty when the public comments relate to board agenda items for which there has been limited, or no, prior opportunity for significant public comment.

In fact, I believe we would all be better off if every school board, zoning board, city council, county board of supervisors, legislative committee, and other public body and agency had two people following their work like the two Hennigan mentions are following the ICCSD school board. Based on what I know, each takes this self-imposed duty seriously, devotes time, does research, speaks out, follows up with tenacity, and is often pursuing matters that almost anyone would agree need a little more attention. I would encourage anyone with the slightest interest in doing so to pick their own public body and agency and perform this role of "public citizen."

Obviously, this does not mean that I agree with every subject these two have prioritized and followed, or with all of the tactics they have apparently believed were constructive and effective in pursuing their view of "the public interest." But I do believe we would all be the worse off if the school board were to somehow remove them from the process entirely.

(4) Alternative opportunities for input. Of course, this interaction can take a variety of forms in addition to public comments at board meetings: personal conversations, email or letters, a Web page open to public comments, listening-interactive sessions held at convenient locations (such as schools around the district) solely for the purpose of dialogue with members of the public. Increasing such alternative opportunities for public input -- especially if board members' responses reflect their impact on changes in board members' positions -- can reduce both the need and desire, for board members and public alike, of lengthy public discussion during board meetings.

(5) The guidelines' standards. Some of the heat last evening was a response to the specific language in the guidelines (set forth below, in full). (Although some was also driven by a "slippery slope" concern that any restriction on public speech during board meetings might lead to shutting out the public entirely.)

(a) School boards, like legislative committees, executive branch agencies, and judges in their courtrooms, have the responsibility, as well as the right, to maintain decorum with regard to the public speech and behavior in their places of work (with some exceptions). A judge need not set forth detailed regulations regarding the specifics of the behavior that he or she will treat as deserving of punishment for "contempt." School boards should be similarly able to control public comments during their board meetings.

(b) It is probably desirable for the school board to announce in advance some guidelines. But it should not be necessary for them to specify in advance a detailed description of each and every act that it will, and will not, permit. Language should be sufficiently precise as to be clear, and yet not so detailed as to turn a matter of informal common sense into something more resembling the intricacies of the Internal Revenue Code. Recall that even Iowa's early highway speed limits were no more specific than "reasonable and proper."

(c) For example, allowing public comment at the beginning, rather than at the end, of meetings is simply thoughtful. That is a specific that could be stated as policy. On the other hand, the board might make clear that the amount of time devoted to comments, both in total and for each speaker, will reasonably vary from one meeting to another, depending upon the number of people who wish to speak, the number of times an individual has spoken, the intensity of public interest in a topic, and the amount of board business on the meeting agenda.

(d) It probably makes sense to have people “sign in” with name, address, phone, and email address, so as to have a record for the board minutes. And requiring speakers to speak one at a time, and from the podium, not only promotes order, and the possibility of being heard, but also better television coverage of the meetings.

(e) It is best to avoid vague standards regarding the content of attendees' speech -– if for no other reason than that the board is “Congress” for purposes of the First Amendment, and content-based restrictions on speech might very well be a constitutional violation. Certainly speakers should not be punished for criticism of the board or administration, or for using the occasionally colorful language that has been a part of America's ongoing political conversation for hundreds of years.

Requiring that comments must involve “matters of public concern” expressed with “respect and decorum” are both too narrow and overly broad. (They are too narrow because they omit many other considerations; they are too broad because they are vague.) Terms like this lie at the side of the road to civil discourse like IEDs in Afghanistan -– providing just one more subject about which arguments can flare. ("You're out of order. That's not 'a matter of public conern.'" "Oh yes it is." "No, it's not.") The same can be said for specifying the sanctions to be applied when “the rules” are violated.

In sum, it is probably better for a school board to exercise the discretion of a judge in getting on with the business at hand, and maintaining decorum, in his or her courtroom -– where the public also has a right to be present, but does not have a right to speak.

Full Text of Proposed Guidelines
ICCSD Public Comment Guidelines

The Iowa City Community School District Board of Directors is committed to maintaining an environment of dignity and respect in all district schools and buildings and at all District activities, events, and meetings. The Board of Directors has promulgated policies of the ICCSD, which mandate a safe and civil atmosphere at district events (Board Policy Code No. 104). Specifically, the Board is committed to a policy of Equal Educational Opportunity, and within this policy the right of all “students and staff to be treated with respect and to be protected from intimidation, discrimination, physical harm and harassment” (Code No. 102).

Beyond the Policies of the Board of Directors, the Superintendent and administration are also committed to maintaining environments free of harassment and discrimination. Superintendent Directive Positive Stakeholder Relations mandates that the Superintendent shall “ensure that conditions, procedures, or decisions are safe, dignified, and that provide appropriate confidentiality and privacy,” and that stakeholder interactions “[p]rohibit the use of abusive language and other behavior generally considered to be lacking in civility and respect for others” (POSITIVE STAKEHOLDER RELATIONS, Level 3a(5)). In addition, The Superintendent is charged with ensuring “conditions that are dignified and consistent with the mission of the public school system” for all staff (STAFF RELATIONS, Level 2b).

To promote a positive educational environment at Board Meetings and to ensure the respect and dignity due every stakeholder under District policy, the following guidelines are in place to guide public comment during ICCSD Board of Director meetings:

Once recognized to speak, speakers are limited to three (3) minutes of public comment

Speakers must submit a request form, which is available at the Board Meeting, to the recording secretary in order to be recognized to speak by the Board President

Comments should be related to matters of public concern

Speakers addressing the Board will conduct himself/herself with respect and decorum.

Comments or expressions that are abusive, harassing, bullying, discriminatory, or lewd shall be prohibited

Comments will only be made from the podium microphone after the community member is recognized by the Board President. Comments made from the audience shall be considered out of order and subject to sanction under this policy

Violations of this policy will result in the Board of Directors, through the Board President, sanctioning the member of the school community that violates these guidelines. Generally, sanctions will be imposed, in a progressive manner, as follows:

A verbal warning by the Board President that the policy has been violated

A written notification that the policy continues to be violated

A suspension from speaking at Board of Directors Meetings

These sanctions do not prohibit the Board President from moving directly to a suspension of speaking privileges for behaviors that are considered egregious. Members of the community that are disruptive to the meeting or refuse to abide by the guidelines may be immediately asked to leave the Board Meeting (or other District meetings where public comment is available). This policy does not prohibit the Board or Administration from enforcing other District Policies in concert with this policy.
# # #

School Board Election: Whom to Vote For?

September 9, 2013 2:15 p.m. [If you're looking for "Syria: Moral Imperatives and Rational Analyses," Click Here.]

Nine Candidates, Three Positions; How Can We Benefit From All?


A Win-Win Advisory Board for District
Nicholas Johnson

Iowa City Press-Citizen, September 5, 2013, p.A7

Be sure to vote Tuesday for Iowa City Community School Board.

OK; but for whom?

We are blessed with this year’s offering: nine good choices. Each brings at least one quality that would benefit our board. [Photo credit: KWWL-TV; Iowa City Community School District Board, Feb. 5, 2013]

Study what the Press-Citizen brings us about them. There may be reasons for your preferences.

If you want a steady-as-she-goes board member — responsive to community pressure, soft spoken, able, collaborative — some candidates’ training and experience suggests they might be, by your standards, marginally preferable to others.

If you want a shake-’em-up board member — innovative, constructively abrasive, researching and advocating best practices, willing to take on the administration and special interests — you may find others marginally preferable.

If you think, however significant the district’s challenges and opportunities may be, the first task before taking up that agenda is for board members to understand board governance — the role of a board members and their interaction with the administration — there may be others who appeal to you.

But there’s no bad vote; no candidate who needs to be avoided at all costs.

When I was a School Board member, I used to say, “you may not get any pay, but at least you get a lot of grief.” Anyone who cares enough about K-12 education to be willing to serve deserves our encouragement and thanks.

It is mathematically impossible to put all nine on the School Board and still have a board of seven members.

So how about, this year, we create the opportunity to benefit from all of them, with a “School Board Advisory Board”?

No matter who wins, there will be six who don’t. There’s no way their votes on board business could be counted legally. Only elected board members can vote. But their comments at board meetings, and revealing how they would have voted on items, could be a significant contribution to board discussions and outcomes. Whomever they may turn out to be, it seems a shame to lose their commitment, enthusiasm and obvious abilities following Tuesday — if they would be willing to serve in that way.

Just a thought.

_______________
Nicholas Johnson
Iowa City

# # #

Three Simple Steps to School Redistricting

May 17, 2012, 9:00 a.m.

School Board Alternatives to Procrastination and Frustration
Who goes to which K-12 schools and why?

There are 15,000 school districts and school boards across the country confronting those questions.

[Photo of prior ICCSD Board.]

Apparently the Iowa City Community School District (ICCSD) school board is now doing so again.

Here's a three-step process for easing everyone's pain.

Step One. Decide to do it. You. The Board members. Not a community committee or a consultant or the Superintendent. Not a series of open forums prayerfully in search of what one board member called "a solution that satisfies the whole community." Alesha L. Crews, School board members talk about next steps; Say portable buildings a short-term solution, should not be permanent," Iowa City Press-Citizen, May 17, 2012, p. A3.

You are the buffer among the District's stakeholders -- students, parents, administrators, teachers, staff, property tax payers, and citizens. Face it, you'll never satisfy them all.

Only you can create "fairness" for the poor and working poor and lower middle class District parents, when the contests arise in which their interests are pitted against those of our most economically and political powerful families.

Remember, this is a public school system. No one but you has a right to dictate policy. Dissatisfied students and parents who want more absolute control over the details have options, from private schools, to other school districts, to home schooling.

Consider their wishes? Of course. But to think, as one board member put it, that it is "absolutely critical that we don’t ignore anyone’s needs," is a classic example of the triumph of hope over experience. It will inevitably produce the K-12 equivalent of the line that "a camel is a horse built by committee."

Nothing against camels mind you, but only the Board can create a rational, efficient, school system in which all the pieces fit, work together, and optimize the desired output -- increased numbers of students graduating closer to their academic potential.

As Nike says, "Just do it."

Step Two. Think specifically about District goals, not generally about drawing lines.

This is where "if you don't know where you want to go, the odds are very high that you'll never get there" comes into play.

Here are some of the destinations you might want to think about:

(a) Are you willing to take your time, or do you have to do it right now? You could announce a new approach to redistricting that will take effect six or seven years from now. That would eliminate most of the emotional opposition from students and parents affected by a shorter time in which to accommodate change. Most of those who will be affected by a future plan don't yet have kids in school -- or haven't even yet moved to Iowa City.

(b) How much flexibility, or rigidity, do you want? Flexibility is a variable that can be turned up or down, like a rheostat controlling the lighting in a dining room. Do you want fixed, immovable lines -- until the next time you have a redistricting crisis? Or would you like to give the Superintendent, and yourselves, some flexibility?

For example, you could provide (and, if (a) is adopted, not until, say, seven years from now) that (1) once assigned to an elementary school a student could finish at that school, but that (2) there would be two, not just one, geographical areas feeding that school. [i] One would be immediately contiguous to the school, a small enough area that virtually no projection of increased population would result in more students living there than the school could properly hold. The children of families living in, or moving into, that area would be assigned to that school. [ii] The other, larger area, would give the Board and Superintendent the flexibility to assign students living there to any one of three or four closest schools. (Of course, once assigned, under principle (a) the student could finish there.) Thus, as new families moved into that larger area they might know the probabilities of where their children would be assigned, but they would not have a firm commitment of a school from the District. (For more discussion and detail, see, e.g., "Disparity in Class Sizes: Simple Solution Rejected," October 13, 2010.)

(c) Settle upon your position with regard to the demographic balance represented in the assignment of "free and reduced lunch" students to the schools. You may want greater disparity than we now have, less, about the same, or have no position, leaving the outcome to chance -- the latter in all probability a policy that will produce an increase in the disparity. Just make up your minds; hopefully with specific numbers.

(d) There are many other variables you can think about, resolve, and announce. Do I have personal preferences on some of these District goals? Of course. But that's irrelevant. These are the Board's decisions to make. My focus at the moment is not on what you decide but what it is you decide about.

By laying out your own very specific metrics for where you say the District is headed, and providing that they will have little to no impact on today's students and parents, because they won't take effect immediately, you provide stability for the future, and virtually eliminate the emotional opposition.

Step Three. Evolve toward your goals. With a little advance individual reading and thinking, Steps One and Two should be capable of resolution with one or two weekends of Board-member-only workshops. Remember, it's your decisions we're talking about, not those of some consultant. Once you announce the outcome, where the District is headed, it will be possible -- without forcing decisions, but as needs for tweaking arise (like now!) -- to make those decisions consistent with your longer range plan (without imposing it wholesale ahead of schedule).

When I confront computer frustration, which seems to happen with some regularity, my computer consultant son, Gregory (http://ResourcesForLife.com) usually advises, "Well, Dad, there are three steps," following which he puts in simple, three-step language what it is that his cyberlaw professor father should do to get on with his personal life in our digital world.

I thought this "Three Simple Steps to School Redistricting" might be helpful for our local School Board as well. We'll see.
# # #

Public's Rights to Public Schools and Land

October 25, 2011, 8:50 a.m.

The Heavy Price of Profit Maximization
The ICCSD School Board and Superintendent have indicated in a variety of ways their inclination to demolish Iowa City's 80-year-old landmark, Roosevelt Elementary School, and sell off the land to the highest bidder, regardless of the winner's proposed use, adverse impact on the neighborhood, and loss of the benefits from this irreplaceable asset for the residents of Iowa City.

It's pretty much a done deal. But it's still worth getting your oar in this polluted water, so I'm going to ask you a favor. A meeting of the Iowa City Community School Board Facility Committee is being held this afternoon in the Central Administration Office, 509 South Dubuque Street (just south of the Post Office), at 4:00 p.m. If you're free, please attend. I'm teaching a class this afternoon until after 5:00, so I can't go. (Unfortunately, meetings on some of the most important Board matters tend to be held when most citizens can't attend.)

The point I'd like to register is that those making these decisions have a responsibility that goes beyond a "marketplace profit maximization" approach. Even if they personally owned this land, one would hope when disposing of it they'd give some weight to the Iowa City community's interests.

But they don't own it. The people do; this is public land. Taxpayers paid for it; stakeholders benefit from it. The Board members have no more moral right to exercise their whim in this matter than would a similar number of developers.

And what it looks like we're going to end up with is a cabal of both.

There are few remaining plots of land of this size and beauty, both west of the river and close to town. This is truly irreplaceable public land. And it should remain as such.

It need not remain a school. It need not be "owned" by the school district. There are many possible options for its maximum contribution to the community. A few of them have been spelled out in this morning's Press-Citizen by Lori Enloe, whose column is reproduced below.

If the Board wants to profit-maximize, it might want to consider a hog confinement, a smokestack industry, or using the beautiful nature trail through the ravine as a nuclear waste dump -- any one of which would benefit from easy access to the railroad, and would undoubtedly bring top dollar.

No; profit maximization, which sometimes works well in the for-profit, commercial sector of society, is inappropriate in this instance. This is not the Board members' land. It is the people's land. It has been for over 80 years. The Board has no need to curry favor with local developers. And this particular piece of property is not a "must have" for developers anyway. They're doing fine.

Now read Ms. Enloe's op ed column, and join with me in this eleventh hour effort to bring common sense and human decency to the Board's management of our land.

Consider Better Options for Roosevelt's School Building
Lori Enloe
Iowa City Press-Citizen
October 25, 2011, p. 7A
http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20111025/OPINION02/310250011/Consider-better-options-Roosevelt-s-school-building
Imagine a place close to downtown Iowa City where the community can:

Gather for meetings and performances in a renovated historic building.

Participate in a community garden.

Play soccer and cricket.

Produce art and take classes for all ages.

The closing of Roosevelt Elementary has created this possibility.

In June 2009, the Iowa City Community School Board voted to close Roosevelt and repurpose the building. A repurposing committee (as a district administrative committee) met from October 2010 to February with the charge of making recommendations for viable solutions for repurposing Roosevelt.

Their ideas were placed in four categories:

Repurpose the property.

Sell to another public entity or nonprofit organization.

Sell to a private entity with stipulations.

Sell to a private entity with no stipulations.

After some consideration of the committee’s recommendations, Superintendent Steve Murley met with the Miller-Orchard neighborhood to discuss his findings and the neighborhood’s concerns Sept. 20. He suggested that he will recommend that the School Board sell the Roosevelt school property.

I encourage the School Board either to repurpose Roosevelt or to sell it to someone who will repurpose the building and property for the local neighborhood and community.

The School Board has a great opportunity to be visionary when it makes a decision about the Roosevelt property when the elementary closes next year. Roosevelt sits very close to the new Iowa City Riverfront Crossing Development and is close to the University of Iowa — making it a great location for creating space that would fit the diverse needs of all of Iowa City and the immediate neighborhood.

The board should consider the gathering spaces that individuals and groups have created in Iowa City and Johnson County — such as Uptown Bills Coffee Shop, Backyard Abundance, Taproot Nature Experience, New Pioneer Co-op Earth Source gardens, Summer of the Arts, community pianos and many other examples — that are important for the sustainability and livability of our community.

Let’s find a way to revitalize and to repurpose the Roosevelt property for our community. It could be a place for a magnet school, early childhood education or a combination of educational programs. Although not revenue neutral, these options could make use of innovative public/private collaboration to offset the cost of the project.

Alternatively, the district could carefully select a buyer who will create a multiuse nonprofit or for-profit community space that could include edible community gardens, a gym, art studios, performance studio and evening classes.

The possibilities are great if the school board invites proposals and provides a long enough time frame for an individual or group to create a proposal for this space and raise the money to purchase it.

Come and listen to the School Board and superintendent as they talk about Roosevelt at their Work Session and Facility Committee meeting at 4 p.m. today in the Central Administration Office, 509 S. Dubuque St.
_______________
Lori Enloe is past president of Roosevelt Parent Teacher Organization and parent of two children in the Iowa City Community School District.
__________
To remove any possible suspicion, or curiosity, as to my direct, personal interest in this issue, (a) I did not attend Roosevelt Elementary (I went through the University's experimental schools, the University Elementary and High School ("U-Hi")), and (b) I neither live, nor own property, in the immediate neighborhood of Roosevelt; it is across the tracks and at the opposite end of Greenwood from me.

# # #

Equalizing K-12 Class Size

September 27, 2011, 8:20 a.m.

Many Advantages of Cluster Schools
The Press-Citizen reports this morning that class sizes in the Iowa City Community School District's elementary schools vary from 13 to 33 students. That is a needless irritant for students, parents, teachers, and principals alike. Rob Daniel, "Area schools adjusting to varying class sizes; District still able to provide adequate instruction," Iowa City Press-Citizen, September 27, 2011, p. A1.

When it comes to unequal class sizes, as this story illustrates, the District’s central administration, principals and teachers have been extraordinarily creative and constructive given the hand they’ve been dealt by the Board.

There are simple solutions that could create almost precisely equal class sizes throughout the District.

Large classes involve two separate issues.

One is the District’s “average” class size – a number that’s determined by the simple math of dividing the total number of elementary school students in the District by the total number of elementary school teachers. The only way to reduce that average number is to hire more teachers.

The other involves the disparity in class sizes between classrooms in different schools (or within a school) illustrated in this article.

One solution to that problem is cluster schools. That’s an approach that can only be undertaken by the School Board, with its new membership.

Cluster schools have a number of additional advantages in addition to equalizing class sizes across the District. As I have summarized elsewhere, they could:

• Be politically feasible, minimize family disruption, and maximize developers' and realtors' advance notice, by implementing them gradually over, say, three to six years.

• Reduce busing costs.

• Cut administrative costs by two-thirds.

• Equalize grades' class size.

• Reduce overcrowding and equalize percentage occupancy of schools.

• Provide central administration flexibility in assigning students to schools.

• Maintain present schools while minimizing taxpayers' burden for costly new ones.

• More nearly equalize each school's percentage of free-and-reduced-lunch students.

For more explanation and details see, Nicholas Johnson, "District needs cluster schools," Iowa City Press-Citizen, June 3, 2009, embedded in "Cluster Schools: Potential for IC District?" June 3, 2009; and "Disparity in Class Sizes: Simple Solution Rejected; Community's Choice is 'Patch and Mend,'" October 13, 2010.

As the heading on that last blog entry indicates, the idea was not even given enough consideration to be rejected by the last Board. And I won't be stunned if it's ignored by the "new Board" as well.

But the point is not so much the value of the precise details of this particular cluster schools approach. It is that, with 15,000 school districts throughout America out there, there are few problems that the ICCSD confronts that have not been experienced, addressed, resolved and reported on by at least one other Board, somewhere, at some time.

It's the Board members' job to make a regular investment of time -- as individuals and as a Board -- researching, reading, reporting, discussing, and trying out as pilot projects the innovative ideas and programs that other Districts are adding to the growing list of "what works."

# # #

Governance: School Board Job No. 1

September 6, 2011, 7:45 a.m.

There's been a lot of confusion around town regarding the "Carver governance model." Here is a brief, 500-word effort to explain why and how it empowers, rather than restrains in any way, school boards and their stakeholders. Additional resources on this and other K-12 topics is below the column.

(Mis)understanding Carver
Nicholas Johnson
Iowa City Press-Citizen
September 6, 2011, p. A7
[temporary Press-Citizen link:
http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20110906/OPINION02/109060303/-Mis-understanding-Carver]

A blazing sunset filled the Grand Canyon. But as I was taking it in from the canyon's rim, the photographer next to me swore at his expensive Nikon camera.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"My camera doesn't work," he said.

"The lens cover's on," I observed.

"Again?!" he exclaimed. "That's the trouble with these (expletive) Nikons."

And that's been our community's trouble with the Carver governance model. We're confusing the idea with its execution.

Carver works for Fortune 500 corporations, large and small non-profits -- and other districts' school boards.

It even worked for ours at one time.

"Plan your work, and work your plan" is good advice for any effort. But if the plan doesn't come off the shelf, the results are no more satisfying than when the lens cover doesn't come off the camera.

The basics of Carver are common sense, and the common practices of anyone who achieves their goals, including everyone reading this paper. A teenager plans to be a doctor. A couple plans a wedding. Iowa City's Combined Efforts Theater goes from script writing to opening night. Coach Kirk Ferentz goes from recruiting to a winning football season. The Powell Doctrine's evaluation of when you do, and don't, go to war and how. Every budding entrepreneur with a business plan.

We all know, "if you don't know where you're going, the odds are very good you'll never get there." It's great to plan, but if you're not clear whether you're planning a wedding or a waterfall in the backyard it's unlikely you'll end up with either.

It's the same with planning a school district's future.

School administrators and teachers need to be involved in planning, but they are overworked as it is. They don't have time for sitting around thinking about the future of the district.

Carver says that's board members' No. 1 job. Identifying and then transforming the district's highest priority ideals into specific dates, measurable goals and regular reports -- with constant monitoring. It's not like a one-time vaccination. It's continuous, hard work. Their job.

That, and drafting job descriptions -- their own, not an easy task, and the superintendent's. Much of the latter can be his accomplishment of board goals.

Carver is not about how boards conduct meetings. Nor how or whether board members answer their email, visit schools or welcome citizen input.

Carver simply reminds them that, whatever else they choose to do, they must first answer the question, "How would we know if we were ever 'successful'?"

Carver's suggestions are like an exercise routine. Make the commitment, work the plan, you'll get results. But as we all know, because there are more exercise books purchased than read, and more read than followed, is not a reason to curse the books.

Iowa City has abundant human resources. Once our board determines and reveals precisely where the district is going, we can get there.

But the picture will remain cloudy if we continue to curse the camera and refuse to remove the lens cover.
_______________
Nicholas Johnson, a former member of the Iowa City Community School Board, maintains www.nicholasjohnson.org and teaches at the University of Iowa College of Law.

__________
Resources

Nicholas Johnson served as a member of the Iowa City Community School District school board 1998-2001. Published material during that term, including the 75 or so bi-weekly Press-Citizen columns on K-12 issues, can be found here.

For more on governance and Carver in general, and what the school board did in particular, see Nicholas Johnson, "Board Governance: Theory and Practice" (last updated April 24, 2001).

For an update on what's been written since, go to the main Web page, http://www.nicholasjohnson.org, look for the Google search icon in the left column, put "governance" in the search panel, click the dot in front of "FromDC2Iowa Blog," and click on "Google Search." As of this morning that produced 249 hits.

This week two public meetings with school board candidates (tonight and Thursday) will focus on school finance, and school boundaries.

School finance. The former is addressed in a five-part series of Press-Citizen columns, numbers 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 (Dec. 22, 1998 through Feb. 16, 1999), available here.

School boundaries. Within the limits of federal and state law, school boards can design school boundaries however they'd like. A way of thinking about that task is laid out in
Nicholas Johnson, "District needs cluster schools," Iowa City Press-Citizen, June 3, 2009, reprinted in the blog entry "Cluster Schools Potential for IC District?" June 3, 2009. This source also contains the lively exchange of comments the column inspired.

Note, as with Carver's approach to governance, that the "cluster schools" approach to boundaries does not limit a school board in any way. It can make schools as roughly equal, or as different, as it likes with regard to say, comparative class sizes, distribution of "free-and-reduced-lunch" children, distances students travel by bus, and other variables. It simply provides a way of looking at, thinking and discussing, district-wide school boundary plans that have enough guiding principles and flexibility to last 10 or 20 years.

# # #

The School Bored, Take Two

May 21, 2011, 11:45 a.m.

The Press-Citizen's Opinion Editor, Jeff Charis-Carlson, asked that I provide, in 300 words or less, a full analysis of what our local, departing, school board members should do between May and September, when their terms run out. Given how much they accomplished prior to this month, 300 words turned out to be plenty of space to itemize what they might do by September. Here is my reply to Jeff, as published in this morning's paper. [Old photo is illustrative only, and does not picture current Board members or Superintendent.]

Just What's a Board to Do?
Nicholas Johnson
Iowa City Press-Citizen
May 21, 2011, p. A17
As I used to say when I was a board member, "You may not get any pay, but at least you get a lot of grief."

The departing Iowa City School Board members have received their share.

Now their terms are coming to an end.

As Frank Sinatra used to remind us:

Oh, it's a long, long time from May to December
But the days grow short when you reach September
When the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame
One hasn't got time for the waiting game.

The current board, with its uncanny skill at "the waiting game," now finds its days growing short as they rush past on their way to September.

It would be nice if they could resolve the Hills Elementary issues before they left, but that's unlikely -- and possibly even unwise.

Come September we'll have a new board -- and unless more incumbents decide to run for re-election, a new board majority. It will, necessarily, find itself confronting more challenges than it can resolve in short order.

What that board would find helpful from each of those departing are at least three things:

» Their individual, personal assessments of where the district is, the major challenges and opportunities it confronts, and the possible solutions -- both those theoretically ideal and those politically possible.

» Their personal assessments regarding what the rest of the country and world are doing in K-12 education -- best practices, evaluations of innovations, what works and what doesn't, and what ought to be given serious consideration by the next school board.

» What would they recommend regarding the process of goal setting and reporting on progress, relationships between board members, and between the board and the superintendent -- in short, governance?

The present board members may not have identified and solved all the problems. But they do have insights and experience to share.
_______________
Nicholas Johnson -- who manages www.nicholasjohnson.org and teaches at the University of Iowa College of Law -- served on the local Iowa City School Board from 1998 to 2001.
_______________
Here are some of the readers' comments the column produced:


coriolanus

4:38 AM on May 21, 2011

I also think of a quote. It's by Mark Twain:

"God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board"



Iriss

7:36 AM on May 21, 2011

This Board has turned dysfunctional and has not been able to pull together- for the good and bad of that. It was time for rubber stamping to stop, it still is. Many new and hard questions have been put on them, but it seems like they spend more time dodging topics than looking into them in constructive manners. Hopefully the new board will be more responsive to the public and its need for input and questions answered. Now the question is - who wants the job?


iowabridges

8:09 AM on May 21, 2011

"Their personal assessments regarding what the rest of the country and world are doing in K-12 education -- best practices, evaluations of innovations, what works and what doesn't and what ought to be given serious consideration by the next school board."

The majority of the current Board has never been interested in the actual issue of education....will they suddenly make up talking points about it?

Now issues like signs at meetings...that is something they do care about, or endless discussions of who should go to school where...that is something our Board should make a priority.


dethorn

8:56 AM on May 21, 2011

The ICCSD has shown no interest in what the rest of the country is doing. The rest of the country is implementing expanded open enrollment, they are encouraging home schooling, they are stopping the social engineering, they are addressing the problems with union control/lenght of tenure pay increases, and tenure based retention, they are focusing on pay for performance.

Most of all there parents are demanding a new focus on teaching reading, writing, and math. Teaching study skills and accountability - of teachers, students, and parents.

There is no interest in Iowa City in discussing any of these issues. Only in playing with the boundaries and fretting about economic inequality issues. Not teaching the children.

# # #

High School 'Overcrowding'?

March 30, 2011, 7:30 a.m.

Are ICCSD Stakeholders Open to Educational Reform?
It appears that the Iowa City Community School District Board, Administration, high school principals, and other local stakeholders are once again addressing what to do about our increasing high school enrollment. Josh O'Leary, "District seeks crowding solutions; Prefers short-term ideas to building new high school," Iowa City Press-Citizen, March 30, 2011, p. A1.

Since, as the headline on Josh O'Leary's story suggests, they seek "crowding solutions" and prefer "short-term ideas to building new high school," what option do I have but to oblige?

As a school board member (1998-2001) I offered up a number of ideas in a variety of forums, including a Press-Citizen column every two weeks (collected online here). After a respectful couple years of silence, from time to time since I've written on K-12 issues in this blog or in newspaper columns. (A Boolean Google search on -- "Nicholas Johnson" ("K-12" OR elementary OR "high school") (FromDC2Iowa OR "Iowa City Press-Citizen") -- produces 633 hits, which can't possibly be all mine, but I don't have the time to figure out a more refined search. Or, see links and a Google tool to search either the Web site or blog on the main Web site, http://www.nicholasjohnson.org)

My previous writing on the subject, some of which you can find there, is the best source of my ideas, but here are some overly-summarized snapshots, taken from a blog entry two years ago today:

The place to begin, of course, is by asking, "What are we doing inside these buildings and why?" When the Board was, I thought, moving a little too quickly to ask an architect to "design a school for us," I observed that normally, before enlisting an architect, the client is able to tell him or her "whether they want a courthouse or an outhouse." When high schools are about to burst at the seams is an ideal opportunity to consider reforms and redesign not only of physical buildings but of curriculum, mission, measures, educational philosophy, and output. Following which, hopefully, the latter will determine and drive the former.

If we want to continue to do exactly what we have been doing then, yes, we probably need more space somewhere. But there are numerous options that could produce a higher quality output at a lower per-student cost. Historically, many (but not all) ICCSD Board members, administrators, faculty and parents have shown a disinclination to adopt data-driven, innovative, "best practices." That may well still be the case. But one shouldn't assume that until we discuss them once again.

Of course, to make change politically possible it is essential, in my view, to announce plans/intentions that will not take effect for, say, six or seven years -- with the result that no child now in school would be affected by the proposal. With that in mind:

1. Build more, and smaller high schools. The best data indicates enrollments from, say, 600 to 800 students are ideal. Above that the problems increase: absence, dropouts, drugs, fights and bullying, graffiti and other property damage, teen pregnancy, etc. Increasing the enrollments at City, Tate and West is the exact opposite of the best way to go. Putting construction dollars into expanding them is irresponsible financial management as well as educational lunacy. (The least worst way to go down that ill-fated path would be to use temporaries.)

Question my assertion? As but three supporting examples of the rather overwhelming data and arguments favoring smaller schools in general and smaller high schools in particular, see Roger Ehrich, "The Impact of School Size," (with "Factors Affected by School Size" and some 13 referenced works); U.S. Department of Education, "School Size: Archived Information;" Karen Irmsher, "School Size," College of Education, University of Oregon, Clearinghouse on Educational Policy and Management, ERIC Digest 113, July 1997 ("None [of the studies] recommend fewer than 300 or more than 900 students").

Don't have the money to staff a fourth high school right now? It wouldn't be the first time an educational or other institution built first and staffed later. Besides, if you moved some of the students from the two overcrowded, conventional high schools into the new, fourth, high school presumably some faculty would be shifted as well; it's not like all faculty positions would be in addition to those we already have.

West High's capacity is 1800; City High's is 1600; and we'll soon (2017) need space for 4,000 -- coincidentally 600 over our current capacity, a near ideal size for a high school. [This data is from 2009.] Why not build it now rather than wait for a crisis?

2. Consider (a) district-wide after-school activities centers, for, e.g., sports, music. This could be done by designating existing high schools as the District's center for all District high school students interested in a given activity, or a new, multi-purpose center for all activities. (b) Individual schools could retain their own teams and music groups, or (c) if we really want to win state-wide football and other championships year after year, we could have single "Iowa City" teams that draw on all schools.

3. Relieve over-crowding in high schools by adopting the recommendations of the National Commission on the High School Senior Year. It concludes the senior year is largely wasted by students anyway. By getting, say, different groups constituting roughly one-half of the senior class out of the building on any given day you can pretty much eliminate the overcrowded hallways some students (and teachers) now believe to be a problem. So what will they be doing out of the building? A variety of things, from attending courses at the University of Iowa or Kirkwood, to job shadowing assignments, to public policy research on community problems -- any one of which, the data indicates, would eliminate the need for construction costs, reduce personnel costs, and increase the benefits to students.

[The following three numbered comments primarily involve elementary school innovation, but are otherwise of related relevance:]

4. In elementary schools equalize class size, building utilization, boundary equity, while easing the burden on administrators, with the "cluster school" concept -- with three or four elementary schools to a cluster. Each school would have a "lead teacher," and the cluster would have one administrator/"principal." Some 50-to-70% of the enrollment for each would come from within a circle around that school; a population guaranteed attendance at that school. The rest would come from (a) within the much larger circle around all three or four schools, but outside the schools' smaller circles, and (b) from the areas beyond all the elementary schools' large circles. Those students could be assigned to schools at the discretion of the Administration, in an effort to balance the assignment of low income students, or achieve other goals.

5. If there would still be gross disparities in the percentages of low income students in each school, bus them the minimum distances necessary to achieve near parity of distribution.

6. And, of course, as COPE-Iowa suggests, make an equal effort with junior high schools and high schools with regard to percentage utilization of each building, and distribution of low income students.

Of course, this is not an essential element of the cluster school approach. If the District's stakeholders would prefer to keep, or make worse, the disparity in the number of low income students in each school, it would also be possible to adjust the inequity up or down as preferred.

7. Exhibit a little more willingness to "think outside the boxes" than we've usually had. I'm told last evening's [March 30, 2009] meeting produced a couple: (a) make one of the junior highs a K-12 school. (There's Iowa City precedent in the University Elementary and High School, now "North Hall," that operated from the early 20th Century through the early 1970s.) (b) Move the 9th graders from West into the west-side junior high buildings. I'm not suggesting either of these suggestions would represent nirvana; but they do represent the kind of creative thinking about alternatives that we have failed to fully explore.

8. Someone needs to provide a little reality and tough talk for Iowa City's parents. The Iowa City Community School District is a public educational system, funded by all property tax payers regardless of whether they have children in school or not. I'm happy to pay my share, and probably most are willing to do so. As the bumper sticker has it, "if you think education's expensive just wait 'til you start paying for ignorance." Everyone benefits by living in a community with a well educated population.

But parents whose children are in the public schools are getting the benefit of an essentially cost-free education for their kids that would be at least $10-20,000 a year in a private school -- an amount that some could afford to pay now (and a fraction of what they will later be paying for a child's undergraduate and graduate tuition). That doesn't mean all of Iowa City's kids shouldn't get the best public education we can provide, that their parents shouldn't be kept in the loop on educational policy and future decisions, or that they shouldn't be listened to, or are not entitled to being treated with dignity and respect by the District's administrators, teachers and staff.

In fact, parental involvement in the schools, monitoring students' homework, attending teacher conferences, considering a run for school board or other volunteer work in the schools, and attending a meeting like the one at Parkview March 30, are one of the most important factors in a child's academic success. So parental advocacy for students is natural, to be expected, and should even be encouraged.

But none of that means that parents can have it all; they cannot dictate District decisions (as they might at a private school). Professions of a sense of entitlement are misplaced. In a public school system district boundary lines may need to be redrawn for the sake of district-wide equity and efficiency in ways parents would not have chosen, courses may not be offered that a parent would like to have, days and hours of school schedules may change, and students may be bused in, or out, of schools -- including their own children -- in ways that cause the parents minor (or even major) inconvenience.

9. These points are nothing more than examples. I claim neither expertise in the profession nor graduate degrees in "education." But that only strengthens my point. All I know I picked up from the writings of those who have done the research and have the credentials -- including ICCSD teachers and administrators. If even I can learn something about K-12 operations, anyone can. It doesn't require advanced degrees; it doesn't require attending conferences. It just requires the desire to make our K-12 system the best it can be, plus some imagination and time spent with Google and the Internet. Trust me, you'll be surprised with how much is available and the number of times you'll be saying, "Wow! I didn't know about that. Why aren't we doing that?"

There's a lot there to discuss, debate (and probably dismiss) I realize. But it's some of what I've thought about as a school board member and since. (And of course see "Long Range Planning Process and Parameters, An ICCSD Board Document," Approved April 11, 2000, which I played a major role in drafting.)

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Disparity in Class Sizes: Simple Solution Rejected

October 13, 2010, 9:00 a.m.

Community's Choice is "Patch and Mend"
(bought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
Sixteen months ago, in a Press-Citizen column regarding the disparity in our local schools' class sizes (among other things), I asked: "the issue is whether the community -- the district's stakeholders, including board members -- want to seize this opportunity. Are we willing to consider creative approaches, whether cluster schools or others? Or would we rather continue to patch and mend?"

This morning's Press-Citizen provides the answer. We would rather continue to patch and mend. Rob Daniel, "Board questions class sizes; Disparity among SINAs brought before Feldmann," Iowa City Press-Citizen, October 13, 2010, p. A3:

Iowa City School Board members questioned why classes in some schools were so much larger than others Tuesday night. . . .

The numbers, which were as of Sept. 23, showed regular education classes ranging from 12 to 27 students per class in kindergarten through second grade and 13 to 31 students per classes in grades 3 to 6. . . .

West High . . . currently has a Spanish class with 41 students . . ..

This is the community's fault. It's not the fault of the past or present superintendent, board members -- and certainly not Ann Feldmann.

This is really very simple math. And the community flunked the exam.

What we have are relatively fixed boundaries for each elementary school; and very few -- often two or three -- classrooms for each grade level within each school (that is, two or three third grades, two or three fourth grade classrooms, and so forth).

Daniel reports the District's goal is an average of 25.1 students per teacher in grades 3 to 6, but that the actual numbers range from 13 to 31 students per class.

This is like the person with a foot in a bucket of ice water and hand in a pot of boiling water, who is "on average" quite comfortable.

So long as you have 50 third graders in a building you can have two third grades, each with 25 students and one teacher. The goal of an average of 25 per class is met.

But what if you have 63 third graders in the building? If you want to stick to a 25-student maximum you will have to hire another teacher -- to teach a third grade of 13 students. Or, you can have one third grade of 32 students and another of 31.

Do you see the problem?

Now suppose you consider three elementary schools that are near each other as a unit, or "cluster." Parents and students identify with their cluster, rather than an individual building. One has 63 third graders, another 39, and the third 52 -- for a total of 154. Examine those third graders in the building with 63. Who are the 13 who most recently enrolled in that school? If they are moved to the building with 39, one school ends up with two third grades of 25 students each, and the other two schools with two third grades each, all with 26 students per classroom.

The "cluster school" idea is a template, not a cookie cutter. It's like an empty spreadsheet into which you can put whatever data and formulas you wish. You can also use it to reduce the number of principals -- or not. You can use it as a way of redrawing a district's school boundaries -- or not. You can use it to minimize (or eliminate) the disparity in percentages of "free-and-reduced lunch" students in each building -- or keep the disparities that exist, or even make them greater.

Nothing is mandated. It is a way of minimizing (or eliminating) disparity in class sizes -- and usually with significantly increased parent and student satisfaction, and significantly reduced cost.

With "local control of schools" a community can choose to do it, or not. We have chosen not to do it. But having chosen to value lack of "change" over all other values and options, we can no longer complain that we have great disparity in individual class sizes.

We also need to remind ourselves from time to time that ours is a public school system that is only possible with the generous support of local citizens' property and sales taxes, plus some state and federal taxpayers' funding. That means that no individual stakeholder has an entitlement to, or should be able to, dictate the details of its operation so as to provide them with 100% satisfaction in every particular. Cluster schools will improve the operation of the entire District. They will make some happier, and others more frustrated.

Those who wish 100% satisfaction should consider the private schools that exist in the community, or the possibility of creating a charter/magnet school of their own. But so long as they are the beneficiaries of something on the order of $100 million of public money modest compromises that involve both improvement and the dreaded "change" will be necessary from time to time.

Removing the disparity in class sizes is but one example of that truth.

Here's last year's column (as embedded in "Cluster Schools: Option for IC District?" June 3, 2009):

District needs cluster schools

Nicholas Johnson
Guest Opinion
Iowa City Press-Citizen
June 3, 2009
Do we need a do-over, a district-wide rethinking of our elementary schools' boundaries?

Based on citizens' organizations, talk at meetings, this newspaper's editorials, columns and readers' online comments, that seems to be the community consensus.

What might be helpful now are conceptual ideas that attempt to make the most of this opportunity, while taking into account the desires of students, parents, teachers, school board members, central administrators, taxpayers, developers and realtors.

Here are some approaches that, with community input and modification, might have potential.

They could:

• Be politically feasible, minimize family disruption, and maximize developers' and realtors' advance notice, by implementing them gradually over, say, three to six years.

• Reduce busing costs.

• Cut administrative costs by two-thirds.

• Equalize grades' class size.

• Reduce overcrowding and equalize percentage occupancy of schools.

• Provide central administration flexibility in assigning students to schools.

• Maintain present schools while minimizing taxpayers' burden for costly new ones.

• More nearly equalize each school's percentage of free-and-reduced-lunch students.

Obviously, all features and details would be subject to stakeholders' input and tweaking, but here are the basic concepts:

We could have "clusters" of, usually three, contiguous schools.

There could be three categories of boundaries: each school's, each cluster's and the areas outside clusters (like the present flex areas).

Student populations within schools and clusters could be small enough to allow, say, 10 years' projected growth and flexibility.

Those within a given cluster, but outside each of its three schools' boundaries, might attend any of the cluster's schools.

Because each cluster would have more, say third-graders, than would an individual school, we could more nearly equalize individual schools' third-grade class size throughout the clusters and district.

Those students within the district, but outside all individual clusters, could be assigned to any cluster -- usually the nearest one.

Once assigned to a cluster, a student could stay there from kindergarten through sixth grade.

The number of students projected to be within each cluster could be designed to provide all district schools with more nearly equivalent percentage occupancy. For example, if all schools needed to be at 90 percent occupancy to accommodate all district students, a school that can hold 200 would have 180; a school that holds 400 would have 360. None need be overcrowded.

Presumably something like this approach would reduce both the number of students, distance, time and cost involved in busing. More students could walk or bike to school.

With all schools even more equal in quality than they are now, there would be even less reason for increased urban sprawl, creating a more vibrant downtown.

Cluster schools make other creative innovations possible.

If desired, schools could be selected for clusters, boundaries drawn and students outside clusters assigned, so as to more nearly equalize the percentages of free-and-reduced-lunch students in each cluster and school.

Each school could have a "lead teacher" to assist colleagues with curriculum and staff development (rather than a "principal"). With only one administrator-principal per cluster, administrative costs would be cut two-thirds. (Reassignments and attrition could avoid layoffs of principals.)

A cluster might devote one school to K-3 students, another to grades four and five and a separate school for sixth graders -- or other combinations.

A cluster's schools might want to share resources, or develop magnet programs in science, math or music open to all that cluster's students.

But those are issues for the future.

For now, the issue is whether the community -- the district's stakeholders, including board members -- want to seize this opportunity. Are we willing to consider creative approaches, whether cluster schools or others? Or would we rather continue to patch and mend?

"Local control of schools" means it really is our choice -- and our children's future.
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Nicholas Johnson, a former member of the Iowa City School Board, teaches at the University of Iowa College of Law and maintains the Web sites http://FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com and www.nicholasjohnson.org.

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* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source -- even if I have to embed it myself.
-- Nicholas Johnson
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