School Board Governance

School Board Members Must Speak Out
Nicholas Johnson
The Gazette, October 6, 2021, p. A6
Returning to my Iowa City home from Washington, confronting appeals of friends who were teachers, I agreed to run for school board, won, but promised only one term.

Later, I tried to recruit new school board members. It wasn’t easy.

Perhaps it was my candid sales pitch: “Well, you may not get any pay, but at least you’ll get a lot of grief.”

We spend less on K-12 than other countries, and our economy grows faster than education spending. But our federal, state and local governments budget $734 billion for it annually -- roughly the size of the defense budget.

Given the responsibilities of school board members it’s remarkable they have neither entrance requirements nor training.

But then neither do presidential appointees.

Maritime Administrator at 29, and lacking administrative experience, I asked Commerce Secretary Luther Hodges about training. There was none. I pleaded for at least some advice. He said all I needed to remember was to pee every chance I got.

Iowa City’s much beloved librarian, Lolly Eggers, served as my school board campaign treasurer, and provided, as befits a librarian, a book: John Carver, Boards That Make a Difference. She had found it useful with her board. So did we.

As Carver puts it, most advice for boards just teaches “how to do the wrong things better.”

Our superintendent was preparing the board’s agenda, complete with what motions should be made and when. As I said at the time, “We don’t have board meetings, we have superintendent meetings to which the board members are invited and have the best seats.” We changed that, redefining the roles of board members and superintendents. [Photo credit unknown, possibly Nicholas Johnson; from blog post, "The School Bored."]

The Cedar Rapids school board’s Board Governance Policies bear some similarity to what we did 23 years ago.

Where they differ in practice involves the role of elected officials and group decision making. We made clear individual board members did not speak for the board. But they did speak -- and listen.

As FCC commissioner I wrote some 400 dissenting opinions. As a school board member, I wrote a newspaper column every two weeks about K-12 education. Sometimes painful for my colleagues, my writing was nonetheless tolerated as part of the group decision-making process.

One reason democracies have multi-person legislative bodies, appellate courts, commissions – and school boards – is the assumption groups produce better decisions than authoritarian dictators. When group members are elected officials, they have an added obligation to express their views, communicate with and represent constituents, to be a voice for the voiceless, an ear for the unheard.

There is not a single challenge confronting Iowa’s school boards that has not been discovered, diagnosed, treated, and resolved by one of America’s 16,800 school boards, or the 19 countries that outscore the U.S. for quality of K-12 education.

School board members need to spend hours regularly studying the literature, reporting, speaking out and stimulating discussion. That, and many other tasks, are things that cannot properly be delegated to a superintendent and board chair.
_______________
Nicholas Johnson is a former Iowa City school board member. See https://nicholasjohnson.org/governance Contact: mailbox@nicholasjohnson.org

SOURCES
[School Board. My term ran from 1998 to 2001.]

[K-12 expenditures. Melanie Hanson, “U.S. Public Education Spending Statistics,” EducationData.org, Aug. 2, 2021, https://educationdata.org/public-education-spending-statistics]

[Defense Budget. “Budget Basics: National Defense,” Peter G. Peterson Foundation, Aug. 2, 2021, https://www.pgpf.org/budget-basics/budget-explainer-national-defense (“The United States spent $725 billion on national defense during fiscal year (FY) 2020 according to the Office of Management and Budget . . ..”)]

[Use of word “pee” in The Gazette; precedent. Adam Sullivan. 2021 headline: “Banning fake pee? In this economy?” The Gazette, Feb. 19, 2021, https://www.thegazette.com/staff-columnists/banning-fake-pee-in-this-economy/ ]

[Lolly Eggers. Iowa City Public Library Librarian, served from 1975-95. “Iowa City Public Library celebrates legacy of Lolly Eggers, Former Library Director,” Press Release, Iowa City Public Library,” July 2, 2021, https://www.icpl.org/press-releases/iowa-city-public-library-celebrates-legacy-lolly-eggers-former-library-director]

[Carver. Doing the wrong things better. John Carver, “Remaking Governance,” American School Board Journal, March 2000, p. 26, http://nicholasjohnson.org/writing-2/asbjcarv.html]

[Cedar Rapids School Board governance. “Article 2 Board Governance and Operations,” Cedar Rapids Community School District Policies and Procedures,” https://crschools.us/series/200/]

[Group decision making. Tim Barnett, “Group Decision Making,” Encyclopedia of Management, Reference for Business, https://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/Gr-Int/Group-Decision-Making.html ]

[Number of school boards. Imed Bouchrika, “101 American School Statistics: 2020/2021 Data, Trends & Predictions,” Education, Research.com, June 10, 2020, https://research.com/education/american-school-statistics (“The U.S. is currently home to 16,800 school districts.”)]

[19 counties better than US education. “20 Best Education System in the World,” edsys, May 22, 2019, https://www.edsys.in/best-education-system-in-the-world/; Patricia Fioriello, “Top K-12 Education System in the World,” Critical Issues in Education, https://drpfconsults.com/top-k-12-education-system-in-the-world/ (“The top five K-12 education systems worldwide are as follows:” – the U.S. did not make the list)]

# # #

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.
# # #

Do Iowa's School Districts Need Consultants?

August 9, 2012, 10:00 a.m. Are They Worth It?

[Credit: Ted Elliott Resources.] The Iowa City Community School District is looking for a consultant -- or consultants -- again. Adam B. Sullivan, "District considers hiring consultant; Firm would determine building capacity, enrollment trends, growth projections," Iowa City Press-Citizen, August 8, 2012, p A1.

[And see, e.g., "School Boundaries: There Are Better Ways," April 16, 2010 ("The ICCSD is not the only school district from among the 15,000 in the U.S. that is confronting the need to redraw its schools' boundary lines. . . . However, most districts also manage to resolve it without months of undirected chaos, changes in direction, and the 'assistance' of expensive consultants."); "School Board Can't Do Job? There They Go Again," January 7, 2010 ("What is it about elected and appointed board members and administrators? Why this compulsive, knee-jerk sprint to search firms and consultants whenever they come face to face with the real job they're there to do? Honestly, what is it? Fundamental, gut-wrenching insecurity and low self-esteem? A political cowardice that seeks to ward off any possible criticism from any quarter with the ability to say, 'But that wasn't our decision; . . ..' Or is it a candid, honest assessment that they are really incapable of doing their job?"); "School Boundaries Consultant Folly", August 28, 2009 (and associated, embedded links); "UI VPs and ICCSD Consultants," August 14, 2009 ("it seems to me the tasks he has identified [for consultants] are tasks well within the job descriptions and expertise of administrators and staff the District already has in place").]

And what do they want these consultants to do? Why does the board think it needs them? The Press-Citizen quotes the superintendent as saying, "As we go through the process of doing facilities planning . . . there is some data we need. We need to know how many kids we have . . .."

This is not calculus, folks. It's not even trigonometry. It's elementary school math.

We had an Australian family visiting us last week. Their young son is almost three years old. He can count. Maybe the Iowa City District could hire him to gather that "data" regarding "how many kids we have." I'm sure he'd be willing to do it for substantially less than the $8000-to-$120,000 bids the board is considering.

Yes, I agree. I am being a little unfair. The board also wants to know "how many kids we're going to have." They think consultants can help them design buildings, draw school boundary lines, and determine transportation and staffing costs. But enrollment projections are already being provided by the University of Iowa. And as I'll soon explain, the decisions in question can and should only be made by board members, not consultants.

Administrative and Executive Pay Scales -- and for What?

What are we paying our school superintendents and college presidents for anyway? With their salaries running ten times those of many of their institutions' employees, and many corporate CEOs paid as much as 400 times their employees' salaries, it's hard to say what level of pay would be appropriate, reasonable and fair. But aren't we already paying them for their expertise to do the very things they want to pay consultants to do?

I'm reminded of the time our Board of Regents was unwilling to exert sufficient effort to retain UI President David Skorton, one of the nation's most highly regarded -- and now highly paid -- university presidents. As Slate has said, "Skorton, a man of great humor, warmth, and charm, is a distinguished research cardiologist and an accomplished jazz musician." Robert H. Frank, "Why Has Inequality Been Growing? How technology and winner-take-all markets have made the rich so much richer," Slate, December 6, 2011. That certainly squares with my own experiences with him -- although I would go on at much greater length regarding the full range of the extraordinary talents of this man. (If I am not mistaken he was qualified to, and did, hold positions in three of Iowa's graduate colleges.)

When the Regents refused him a pay raise, and many expected him to be miffed, his response was characteristic of the man: "When the median family income in Iowa is around $45,000 and I make over $300,000, it’s hard to argue that is not a lot of money. It’s very generous." Nicholas Johnson, "Pricey Presidents' Added Cost," Daily Iowan, March 7, 2006. (Cornell University is now paying him probably about three times that.)

Call me naive, but I think even $100,000 a year, plus benefits -- twice the average Iowan's income -- ought to be a liveable wage in most towns in Iowa today. At $250,000 -- five times the average Iowan -- the recipient is in the top 2 percent of American wage earners, most of whom live in east or west coast locations much more expensive than any in Iowa. Andrew Ross Sorkin, "Rich and Sort of Rich," New York Times, May 15, 2012, p. WK1.

It would be unrealistic to think that a school district or college should be able to obtain the equivalent of a David Skorton at those, or any other, salary levels. Individuals who combine the talents of Thomas Jefferson, Galileo, Michelangelo, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, Jesus, Wynton Marsalis, and Jerry Seinfeld are extremely rare.

So we're not getting those qualities. But what are we getting for our money? What can we reasonably expect? Sometimes it seems like the equivalent of the fellow who applied for a job as chef, and when asked what he most liked to make for dinner replied, "reservations." An institutional administrator whose primary skill is picking consultants is little better than that aspiring chef -- especially if the consultants he finds aren't that much better, either.

The Responsibilities of School Board Members

School board members cannot reasonably be expected to bring high level administrative skills, and K-12 expertise, to their jobs. It is a largely thankless position with little-to-negative payoff professionally, politically, socially, and none financially. As I used to say when serving on the Iowa City school board, "You may not get any pay, but at least you get a lot of grief."

That said, for whatever reason board members have chosen to serve. From my perspective that means they have assumed some self-imposed responsibilities.

They need to combine the desire and ability to listen to all stakeholders, along with the political courage to stand up to the inevitable opposition to the changes necessitated by the best interests of the district.

They must be able to think rationally and precisely about their governance system and come to agreement about their self-imposed procedures.

They need to get themselves informed about the range of issues confronting school districts all across the country, and given our global economy, progressive systems in other countries as well.

They need to recognize that, with 15,000 school districts in this country it is highly unlikely they will confront any challenge that has not already been present, identified, confronted, resolved, and written up about another district somewhere.

There are thousands of useful articles, books, government and foundation reports, education periodicals, and academic research regarding K-12. School board members need to spend at least as many hours informing themselves by searching the Internet, and local libraries, as the hours away from home they would spend attending a national school board convention in a holiday resort at taxpayers' expense.

Many to most of the issues school boards confront are issues that school board members, and only school board members, can address and resolve.

As I used to tell my colleagues, "Normally before you ask an architect for advice you know whether you want to build a courthouse or an outhouse." Only the board can decide what they want to do inside those school buildings -- not an architect, a committee, or a consultant. If they think team teaching and block scheduling are a good idea the walls will be in different places. If the board is persuaded by the available research that the optimum size of a high school is about 800 students, that will affect the size and cost of any new high schools. If the board decides, as advised by the National Commission for the High School Senior Year, that the best place for high school seniors is out of the high schools, that may reduce the "overcrowding" that dictates the need for new buildings.

The same thing can be said regarding school boundaries, class sizes, allocation of students from low income or homeless families. These all involve decisions that should be assumed, personally, by board members -- legally, politically, morally, and administratively -- not "contracted out" to the superintendent, committees, or consultants.

Ulterior Reasons for Using Consultants

Of course, the problem is actually worse than this. Consultants are often used, not because board members haven't done their homework, not because they don't know the answer or how to find it, but because they want to distance themselves politically from the decision. They want to be able to say, "we got the best consultants in the business (or best people in the community to serve on our committee), and this is what they advised." This may be made worse still by paying a consultant who is willing to come up with the recommendation the board has already decided upon.

A Little Closing Consultant Comedy

Well, enough of all this heavy discussion. Let's close with some of the stories consultants even tell about themselves.

Consultants, like lawyers, suffer from an abundance of jokes.

A young consultant in a Mercedes pickup truck, dressed in suit and tie, missed his turn and found himself on a dirt backroad in Iowa alongside a field. Spotting the farmer, he decided he'd have some fun while getting directions.

"If I tell you exactly how many sheep you have in that field will you give me one?"

"Sure," the farmer replied.

The young man went to work with his laptop, access to a NASA satellite, and offered the answer: "You have exactly 1322 sheep."

"Right, said the farmrer, who opened the gate, and let the young man into the field to select his animal.

Now it was the farmer's turn. "If I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my animal?"

"OK, take a guess."

"You're a consultant."

"How'd you know?"

"Simple," replied the farmer. "You turned up here although nobody called you. You want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked, and you know nothing about my business. Now give me back my dog!"

How do you know you're dealing with a consultant?

When he took you to lunch he asked the waiter to explain the restaurant's "core competencies."

He can spell "paradigm."

He insists on referring to every serious problem in your organization as nothing more than an "improvement opportunity."

When you asked what he did before becoming a consultant he described it as "my sunk cost."

He is able to say "value-added" without laughing.

He refers to his wife as his "co-CEO." She confides to you that he used to refer to their dating as test marketing, he always put executive summaries on his love letters to her, he wanted to do more market research before they had their first child, and now he wants to re-org their family into a "team-based organization."

(Who provided some of the raw material to stimulate the above? Why, consultants of course. DCS Media "Consulting Jokes" and Tom Antion & Associates, "Consulting Humor.")

Want to be able to talk to your consultant? Forbes has contributed its own list of proposed vocabulary for MBA's seeking promotions. It will also be useful for school board members who wish to appear knowledgeable when talking with consultants. It contains such words and phrases as this sampling from Forbes 89: "thrown under the bus," "low-hanging fruit," "next big thing," "best practices," "peel back the onion," "phoned it in," "elephant in the room," "basic blocking and tackling," "our go-to-market," "move the needle," "the deliverable," "gone viral," "square the circle," "cash cow," "synergy," "incentivize," "perfect storm," "at the end of the day," "let's put lipstick on this pig," "results-oriented," "a one-off," "facing some headwinds," "put that in the parking lot," "let's blue sky this," "where the rubber meets the road," "net it out," "creative destruction," "boots on the ground," "paradigm shift," "data-driven," "win-win," and "wrap our heads around." Eric Jackson, "89 Business Cliches That Will Get Any MBA Promoted And Make Them Totally Useless," Forbes, June 19, 2012.

Concluding Remarks

I don't deny that there may have once been some institution, many years ago in a land far away, that actually benefited from consultants. That's certainly possible. But I'm not convinced we're better off with them than we would be if superintendents and board members would bring their own expertise, study, judgment, and political courage to bear to what are, after all, their personal responsibilities.

# # #

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.

# # #

Superintendent Murley's Calm Seas, Smooth Sailing

April 29, 2010, 7:00 a.m.
[May 2 Addendum on UIHC "patient satisfaction," at bottom of entry.]

[This is the eleventh in what is, as of this morning, an eleven-part series on the Iowa City schools' selection of a new superintendent: "School Boundaries: There Are Better Ways," April 16, 2010 (with links to 23 prior, related blog entries and other writing); "How to Pick a School Superintendent; And My Questions for Candidates," April 17, 2010; "Bringing Home the Bacon and Bezek," April 20, 2010, "ICCSD's Triple Play: From Bezek to Murley to Meeks; Bezek Can Talk the Talk -- On Four Hours' Sleep," April 21, 2010; "Hurlyburly Over Murley," April 22, 2010; "IC Board Peeks at Meeks; Brad Meeks Rounds Out Three Finalists," April 23, 2010; "Finalists Responses? Decision Sunday? Finalists Offered Last Word," April 24, 2010; "IC Supers' Email: Bezek Responds, Murley & Meeks Don't; Constituent Relations Important -- But No Deal Breaker," April 25, 2010; "Where There's No Smoke There's No Fire; How Many School Board Members Does It Take to Screw Up a Superintendent Selection?" April 26, 2010; "School Boards, Superintendents, Contracts & Candor; The End of the Beginning But 'What Did They Know and When Did They Know It?'" April 28, 2010.] (Photo credit: The Gazette.)

The Morning After the Night Before
and "Compared to What?" ICCSD vs. UIHC
(Brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
Following the confusion Tuesday night regarding what the Board knew and did, and when they knew and did it (see "School Boards, Superintendents, Contracts & Candor; The End of the Beginning But 'What Did They Know and When Did They Know It?'" April 28, 2010), by the following morning the Gazette's Gregg Hennigan was talking to ICCSD President Patti Fields, the Board members were saying how enthusiastic they were about Steve Murley and why, and Murley was continuing to say the right things with skill.

You don't pull up your tomato plants two days after you plant them to see how the roots are doing, and you don't judge a new superintendent two days after the Board says he's hired. But, as the English channel swimmer told the inquiring reporter right after she dived in, "So far so good."

Here are this morning's reports on who said what yesterday: Rob Daniel, "Board impressed by Murley's enthusiasm; Superintendent pick stood out, members say," Iowa City Press-Citizen, April 29, 2010, p. A1; Gregg Hennigan, "Plenty of Issues to Greet New Superintendent in I.C.," The Gazette, April 29, 2010, p. A3; Keith Uhlig, "Departing Superintendent Won't Receive Severance or Bonus Pay," Wausau Daily Herald, April 29, 2010.

"What We've Got Here is a Failure to Communicate"

As our sensory inputs get filtered through the electro-chemical soup that is our brain, and come out as human language, it is indeed a miracle that there is as much understanding among us as occasionally occurs. (See, Wendell Johnson, "The Communication Process and General Semantic Principles.")

And so it was the evening of April 25 after the School Board discussed the three finalists in closed session, and President Patti Fields responded to reporters' questions. See "School Boards, Superintendents, Contracts & Candor; The End of the Beginning But 'What Did They Know and When Did They Know It?'" April 28, 2010.

I am about as certain as I can be that there was no malevolence on either side. Patti, aware of what she could, and could not, tell the media tried to relay something without giving away what was apparently the fact at that time: by the end of its meeting that evening the Board had, for all practical purposes, come to a unanimous agreement to hire Murley. All that was left were the contract details.

What she said (based on the newspapers' reports, and with some approximation by me), was seemingly technically accurate. That is, until contract terms have been agreed to the Board has not picked its superintendent. So to say Sunday evening that the Board hadn't reached a decision, that no one had been eliminated, that it might hold another closed session, and that she hoped there would be a decision to announce in the next few days, was from her perspective literally accurate and the equivalent of saying, "We've unanimously chosen the one we want, but we won't be announcing anything until the contract is agreed to."

However, the professional journalists from the Iowa City Press-Citizen, The Gazette, Wausau Daily Herald -- and the amateur blogger who is myself -- were certainly reasonable, from their perspective, and within the context of what they were asking, to interpret what she said differently.

When they are asking whether the Board has made a choice, it is not unreasonable for them to interpret what they are told as a reply to that question. And "no decision," "no one has been eliminated," "we may have another closed meeting," and "we hope to have a decision in the next few days," in normal, day-to-day colloquial speech can most reasonably be interpreted to mean, "No, we have not yet been able to settle on whom we want."

And in this context, the exchange between Hennigan and Fields set forth yesterday in "School Boards, Superintendents, Contracts & Candor; The End of the Beginning But 'What Did They Know and When Did They Know It?'" April 28, 2010, regarding the distinction between "may" and "expect to" hold another closed session is kind of beside the point. Any reference to a future meeting, regardless of what words preceded it, in the context of the questions asked and the responses provided, further supports the reasonable inference that no decision had been made.

In retrospect, as suggested in that blog entry, perhaps Patti should have stuck with, "as they said at the outset, 'We have nothing to announce this evening. Once a finalist has been selected and a contract agreed upon and signed, we will let you know.'" That would have been far better than either (a) refusing to talk to the media at all, or providing them only a "No comment," or (b) using language that risked the misunderstanding that ultimately resulted, through no real fault on the part of the reporters it seems to me.

On the other hand, the reporters might have done more. Presumably they (and I) knew the process: Board members settle on a first choice and then try to work out the contract; meanwhile they announce nothing to any of the finalists, media or public (in case they end up needing to go back to one of those rejected); once the contract details are settled on the announcement is made. With that understanding, and years of experience trying to get a straight answer out of institutional leaders, they (we) might have framed some more penetrating questions than "have you made a decision?"

We still don't know exactly what happened Sunday evening, nor what happened between then and Tuesday night's meeting. But unless something sufficiently dramatic about either comes to my attention in the next few days, it's my intention that this comment is the last you'll see in this blog on the subject/s.

Compared to what?

Much in life must be addressed as Henny Youngman responded to the man who asked him, "How's your wife?" to which he replied, "Compared to what?"

Well, compared to the UIHC, the ICCSD's public/media relations rank right up there with the slickest and most professional New York, Los Angeles, or Washington public relations firms.

You don't know the story?

It turns out the hospital just found out that it somehow overlooked billing patients for $11 million worth of services. I never had that problem with them. My problem was getting billed twice for the same service. (Although I'm quite willing to grant that it was in all likelihood the result of the same kind of incompetence and lack of management oversight, not dishonest, knowing double-billing.) But wouldn't you think you'd discover a shortage before it reached $11 million? I would; I enter every receipt, every check, every weekend. If I'm off by a nickel I have to try to remember when and where I put it into a parking meter. Don't they do anything like that?


What makes it worse, it was an audit by the Regents that discovered the shortfall, not the UIHC's audit, or management oversight. (Photo credit: Opoien, Iowa State Daily, February 4, 2010 meeting.)

B.A. Morelli, "Audit finds $11M UIHC billing error; Regents also approve a 6% rate increase at meeting," Iowa City Press-Citizen, April 29, 2010, p. A1; and the DI's two, page one, above-the-fold stories this morning, side by side: Emily Busse, "UIHC Missing $11 Million," The Daily Iowan, April 29, 2010, p. A1, and Nora Heaton, "UIHC To Raise Its Rates," The Daily Iowan, April 29, 2010, p. A1.

But here's the kicker: If you have any public relations sense at all, you don't announce that you've lost $11 million the same day you announce a 6% increase in your rate card, a $73 million new outpatient clinic in Coralville, . . .



. . . all while making a herculean effort to explain why "The problems were not because of a new $60 million hospital computer system called Epic" -- a computer system that has been widely criticized for a variety of reasons. (Video credit: benhillmedia; full disclosure: actors include son, Jason Grubbe (Actors Equity), Jim Van Valen, and Martin Andrews.)

Why, that would be like announcing you're no longer going to let patients park for free while they wait hours beyond their appointment time, at about the same time you announce the first question you're going to put to patients when they check in will be, "Hey, would you like to make a 'voluntary' contribution? How much?"

Oh, they did that, too? And they were all going to go to Disney World in Orlando to find out how to improve patient satisfaction?

Oh, well, never mind.

So we do need to put the Board's media relations this week into some kind of perspective. Compared to the UIHC the School Board is spectacular.

_______________
Patient Satisfaction

Here is some dramatic testimony regarding patient frustration with UIHC, and a Press-Citizen column on the subject.

I have written at some length before about "patient satisfaction" at the UIHC, e.g., Nicholas Johnson, "Mickey Mouse Patient Satisfaction; UIHC's Troubles: Is Orlando the Answer?" November 8, 2009.

The serious-while-lighthearted column is by former City Council member Bob Elliott, "Cheaper customer service training," Iowa City Press-Citizen, April 30, 2010.

But the most serious commentary about UIHC patient satisfaction is found in a comment entered online about Bob Elliott's column by one of the hospital's frustrated, unsuccessful-want-to-be patients:

catdancing

NickIowa,
I read your blog and I couldn't agree more on the problems at UIHC. Right now I'm in the process of trying to find another place to go for medical care. The last couple of times I tried to make an appointment, I was stuck on hold for an hour. The first time I did get through and was told that the next appointment time was six weeks from then. I had an infection in my ear lobe that was oozing pus, swollen lymph node in my neck, low grade fever. The second time I gave up. My right foot is swollen, painful, possible hairline fracture. My left hip hurts so much (probable result of limping) it keeps me awake nights. This has been the case for five months.
My insurance was through IowaCare which meant I had to go to UIHC or IowaCare wouldn't pay for it. I dropped coverage because I was paying for care I could not access. Now I have no insurance and nowhere to go and no option except to wait for Medicare to kick in.
This is beyond a customer service problem. This is systemic.
5/2/2010 6:25:17 AM

_______________

* 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
# # #

School Boards, Superintendents, Contracts & Candor

April 28, 2010, 6:15 a.m.
Now with 7:00 p.m. Addendum at bottom of blog entry: "So What Really Happened?"

[This is the tenth in what is, as of this morning, a ten-part series on the Iowa City schools' search for a new superintendent: "School Boundaries: There Are Better Ways," April 16, 2010 (with links to 23 prior, related blog entries and other writing); "How to Pick a School Superintendent; And My Questions for Candidates," April 17, 2010; "Bringing Home the Bacon and Bezek," April 20, 2010, "ICCSD's Triple Play: From Bezek to Murley to Meeks; Bezek Can Talk the Talk -- On Four Hours' Sleep," April 21, 2010; "Hurlyburly Over Murley," April 22, 2010; "IC Board Peeks at Meeks; Brad Meeks Rounds Out Three Finalists," April 23, 2010; "Finalists Responses? Decision Sunday? Finalists Offered Last Word," April 24, 2010; "IC Supers' Email: Bezek Responds, Murley & Meeks Don't; Constituent Relations Important -- But No Deal Breaker," April 25, 2010; "Where There's No Smoke There's No Fire; How Many School Board Members Does It Take to Screw Up a Superintendent Selection?" April 26, 2010.]

The End of the Beginning
But 'What Did They Know and When Did They Know It?'
(Brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
The ICCSD School Board has selected Steve Murley, Superintendent at Wausau, Wisconsin, to be Superintendent Lane Plugge's replacement starting July 1, 2010. It represents the end of the beginning of the a new superintendent's tour of duty, but only the beginning of what we all hope will be a long, productive and progressive experience for Steve Murley, the Board members, and community alike.

You read it first right here, last evening at 7:15 p.m. (The Press-Citizen had the story posted online by 7:52.)

This morning that paper, and The Gazette, had further details in the hard copy and online editions. Rob Daniel, "District hires superintendent; Murley to take over position July 1," Iowa City Press-Citizen, April 28, 2010, p. A1; Gregg Hennigan, "Iowa City School Board Hires Wisconsin Superintendent to Lead District; No Decision Reported After Board Members Met Sunday Evening," The Gazette, April 28, 2010, p. A1 (the link goes to the early evening Gazette Online story and does not contain everything in the hard copy version, discussed below); Keith Uhlig, "Superintendent takes Iowa job; Wausau to begin search for new school boss," Wausau Daily Herald, April 28, 2010; Holly Hines, "Murley to Be New Iowa City School District Superintendent," The Daily Iowan, April 28, 2010.

There's not much new information about Murley in those stories. But we are left with some disturbing questions about the process followed by the Board in arriving at its decision, and the candor with which it communicated about that process to the public and media.

If you're interested in how we got here, the nine prior blog entries on the process and the finalists are linked at the top of this page. The most directly applicable to Murley are "Hurlyburly Over Murley," April 22, 2010, and his statement for this blog at the bottom of "IC Supers' Email: Bezek Responds, Murley & Meeks Don't; Constituent Relations Important -- But No Deal Breaker," April 25, 2010 (he and Meeks both responded, but too late to modify the blog entry headline).

I concluded the last blog entry with an excerpt:

Steve Murley wrote, in pertinent part, "You stated that, 'Indeed, one should be extremely suspicious of anyone who would be willing to be considered for the job of working with such a school board.' Your comment was made in reference to concerns that you enumerated about the lack of a clear governance system, delineation of measurable goals, discussion of educational innovations, and absence of metrics for results measurement related to boundary changes. I am in full agreement with you that these are indeed important issues for the Board to tackle. However, the absence of these does not indicate to me that the Board has chosen to ignore them or that the Board thinks they are unworthy of attention."

That is an observant, insightful, well written and very positive and politic statement. Any superintendent who comes here acknowledging concerns regarding our Board's "lack of a clear governance system, delineation of measurable goals, discussion of educational innovations, and absence of metrics for results measurement related to boundary changes," and can articulate it in a way that expresses optimism in the possibility of solutions -- not to mention still be hired! -- is starting off on the right foot so far as I'm concerned.

"What Did They Know and When Did They Know It?"

None of what follows reflects in one way or another on Steve Murley.

As for the Board, however, the take-away from Daniel's and Hennigan's stories (and an earlier one in the Wausau paper) is troubling.

How and when did the Board actually make this decision? Were its statements to the media and public deliberately designed to be misleading? Was its process legal? Even if legal, does it owe the public and media more candor?

As Hennigan writes in the early Online edition,

Fields said the board was unanimous in its support for him. The board met for two and half hours Sunday night in closed session, but Fields said afterward they had not come to an agreement on whom to hire.

She also said the board expected to hold another closed session to discuss the matter further. If the full board met again, it does not appear it sent out notice of the meeting, as is required by state law.

It’s not clear when the board made its decision. The board is currently holding its regular meeting and is not available for questions.

The hard copy this morning continues,

Murley said he had been in talks with the board, its attorney and the search consultant on and off since Sunday evening. Fields did not say what Murley's salary will be. Murley said they were still negotiating that.

[In fairness to Board President Patti Fields, although I'm not sure it doesn't increase rather than decrease the total confusion, she has put the following comment on the Gazette Online version of Hennigan's story about 8:00 a.m. this morning: "Greg, since you and I spoke late on Sunday night maybe you don't remember what I said. I did not say the board expected to have another closed session, I said that we had the option and we had until Monday night to add it to our agenda. For clarification, until an agreement is reached all candidates are still in consideration. The board did not meet again and it is concerning to make such allegation without actually talking to any board member."]

[And now, in fairness to Gregg Hennigan . . .. I know this is getting to sound a little silly; like, why don't I just hold their coats and let them fight? But because this blog endeavors, at least on some occasions, to be "the blog of record," and because Gregg has provided a somewhat detailed explanation of what happened, I have set it forth in full at the bottom of this blog entry.]

Not incidentally, the Wausau Daily Herald story this morning, linked above, continues to report his current, 2009-10, salary at Wausau as $152,700 (in contrast with an earlier local news story saying it was in excess of $200,000).

Rob Daniel reports, above,

The selection followed a closed session special board meeting Sunday night after which Fields said no decision had been reached. She said Tuesday night that the selection of Murley was a unanimous decision. . . .

Murley said he received the first draft of his contract from district attorney Kirsten Frey earlier Tuesday. He deferred to the school board on how the offer was made to him.

Fields said the board was talking with Murley as early as Sunday, but no official decision was made.

"Until an offer is made and accepted, everyone is still in play," she said.

Fields said the board does not need to vote in open session when selecting a candidate for a position like superintendent, but the board will need to vote when it decides what will go into Murley's contract. The final salary and benefits package are still in the process of being negotiated, but Fields said the board expects to vote on the contract at one of its meetings in May.

At the outset the Board seemed to indicate that its process would involve (1) making its first choice from among the three (which would not be announced at that time), followed by (2) a time for negotiating the terms of a contract, following which (3) an announcement of their choice would be made once the contract was signed. (Unfortunately, I cannot recall off the top of my head which paper this was in and when, but I suspect it is reproduced somewhere in this series of ten blog entries.)

At a minimum, it would seem that process was not followed. (a) If the terms of the contract are still being negotiated, and are going to be voted on "sometime in May," it seems to me there is still the possibility, however remote, that this is not yet a fully done deal. (b) Both Daniel and Hennigan report they were told "no decision had been reached" at the Sunday night meeting. The Board said at that time that no one had been eliminated. (As late as yesterday morning's edition, the Wausau paper was reporting that "School Board President Patti Fields said the board hoped to have a decision in the next few days." "Superintendent Awaits Job News," Wausau Daily Herald, April 27, 2010.) (c) Thus, I think one can fairly conclude that either a decision was reached sometime between Sunday night and Tuesday evening at 7:00 p.m., or that the Board was not candid in saying Sunday night that no consensus had yet emerged. Which would be worse?

Where, when and how was the decision arrived at?

The Board says that it "does not need to vote in open session when selecting a candidate for a position like superintendent."

There are two issues here. (1) Are there circumstances when the open meetings law permits a school board to hold their discussions in a meeting not open to the public and the media? The answer to that is, "yes." (2) Was what they did, and the way they did it, legal under the terms of the open meetings law and its exceptions? The answer to that question turns on facts that are not now available to us; but from a first glance it looks like the Board may have violated the law -- and certainly the public's trust and confidence.

(What follows is based on my memory, not legal research. It is not a "legal opinion," it is a blogger's, and former school board member's opinion. So if you really care about this stuff, and need to know the law precisely, talk to a lawyer.)

The question is not whether it's possible to meet in closed session, the question is how Board members are to go about doing that. The law requires all Board meetings to be open meetings, and that, in turn, requires prior notice of the meeting, a public agenda, and other things.

Once a legal open meeting has begun, it is possible for a Board member to make a motion that the Board go into a closed meeting -- stating the legal justification for doing so. That motion is voted on, and if passed, the closed meeting begins (and must be tape recorded).

Without going into detail about what exceptions to the open meetings law permit closed meetings, it is certainly possible to make the argument that a discussion of the merits and demerits of a potential hire -- or whether or not to terminate an employee -- could sometimes justify a closed session.

Following the closed session, the Board is required to come back into open meeting before adjourning, and to vote in open meeting on anything requiring a vote.

Thus, had the Board gone through this process, it could have announced and held another open meeting between Sunday evening and Tuesday evening; at that meeting it could have gone into closed session and agreed on the finalist with whom it wished to try to negotiate a contract.

However, it does not appear to have done that.

If it believed that it could continue a "rolling" meeting from which it never adjourned until last night, it was in error. If the Board members got together for another, secret and unannounced meeting, they were in error. If they continued talking by non-synchronous phone and email messages, during the course of which a de facto decision gradually emerged, they were in error.

If they in fact had arrived at a decision Sunday night -- given that they then announced they were unanimous in eliminating no one, and now say they were unanimous in choosing Murley -- they were unnecessarily duplicitous in saying they had made no decision.

They could have simply said, as they said at the outset, "We have nothing to announce this evening. Once a finalist has been selected and a contract agreed upon and signed, we will let you know."

They did not. As Hennigan reports, they said they "had not come to an agreement on whom to hire [and that] the board expected to hold another closed session to discuss the matter further."

As with former President Nixon, the question is, "What did they know and when did they know it?"

While we wait for those answers, meanwhile we can congratulate the Board for getting this choice behind us -- or at least almost nearly so, once the contract is negotiated, signed, and voted on by the Board.

Now we welcome Steve Murley to Iowa City, look forward to getting to know him better, and the governance policy and management tools he will bring with him and work through with our Board.

7:00 p.m. : Addendum: So What Really Happened? Here's Gregg Hennigan's take:

Fields explains superintendent selection process

Posted on Apr 28, 2010 by Gregg Hennigan.

IOWA CITY – How and when did the Iowa City school board makes its decision to hire Stephen Murley as the next superintendent?

There was some confusion Tuesday night, as you can see from the story here.

I spoke with board President Patti Fields Wednesday morning.

First, some background. The school board met Sunday night in closed session, with the goal of picking a new superintendent.

I talked with Fields after the meeting. My first question was whether they had made a decision. She said the board was “still working through our process.”

I asked her what that meant and whether they had made a selection. She said that the board hoped to have something figured out in the next three days and that they had not eliminated any of the three candidates.

She also said the board could meet in another closed session to discuss the matter further.

We didn’t hear anything more until Fields announced Murley’s hiring Tuesday night.

Wednesday morning, Fields said she was not trying to be misleading the other day. She said board members were unanimous in naming Murley their “preferred” candidate, but in case they couldn’t reach an agreement with him, they did not rule anyone out.

“We can’t even say we’ve ‘selected,’” Fields said, “because when you start saying you’ve selected, then it means you also threw (out) the other two.”

She said she had to choose her words carefully on Sunday. I wish I had asked her then if they had a “preferred” candidate.

By the way, the Press-Citizen ran into this issue of semantics too.

Patti, I may have to give you the “Meet the Press” treatment from now on.

(That is a joke. Fields and I had a very good talk this morning.)

On to her comments on the GazetteOnline story. I initially wrote that she said Sunday that the board “expected” to hold another closed session.

I quickly changed that to “may” in subsequent updates and for the newspaper, but I apologize for the poor word choice in the first update.

And on her other point, I did not have a chance to talk with board members Tuesday night. Fields made the announcement during the board meeting, and the meeting continued, without a break, until well past our deadline. I did not allege that they broke the open meetings law. I just pointed out that if they met, they did not send out the required notice.

Believe me, I wanted to ask some questions.

Gregg Hennigan, "Fields Explains Superintendent Selection Process," Gazette Online, April 28, 2010.

_______________

* 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
# # #

Where There's No Smoke There's No Fire

April 26, 2010, 6:15 a.m.

Update April 27, 7:15 p.m.: It's Steve Murley! (see below)

Update April 27, a.m.: ICCSD President Fields says decision in "next few days," link below.

[This is the ninth in what is, as of this morning, a nine-part series on the Iowa City schools' search for a new superintendent: "School Boundaries: There Are Better Ways," April 16, 2010 (with links to 23 prior, related blog entries and other writing); "How to Pick a School Superintendent; And My Questions for Candidates," April 17, 2010; "Bringing Home the Bacon and Bezek," April 20, 2010, "ICCSD's Triple Play: From Bezek to Murley to Meeks; Bezek Can Talk the Talk -- On Four Hours' Sleep," April 21, 2010; "Hurlyburly Over Murley," April 22, 2010; "IC Board Peeks at Meeks; Brad Meeks Rounds Out Three Finalists," April 23, 2010; "Finalists Responses? Decision Sunday? Finalists Offered Last Word," April 24, 2010; and "IC Supers' Email: Bezek Responds, Murley & Meeks Don't; Constituent Relations Important -- But No Deal Breaker," April 25, 2010.]

How Many School Board Members Does It Take to Screw Up a Superintendent Selection?
(brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
April 27, 7:15 p.m.: Tuned into the Tuesday evening Board meeting on cable, and caught the Board members referring to scheduling a meet and greet with "Steve" once he gets a break in his schedule, and other remarks relating to the selection of a superintendent, which makes it virtually certain that the remarks must have been preceded with the announcement of their selection of Steve Murley as the superintendent to replace the departing Lane Plugge. By 7:52 it was confirmed by the Press-Citizen: Rob Daniel, "District Names New Superintendent," Iowa City Press-Citizen Online, April 27, 2010, 7:52 p.m.

What follows is the April 26, 2010, blog entry as entered that morning:
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No puff of white smoke emerged from the ICCSD Central Administrative Office last night; nor, apparently, did much of anything else emerge, except for seven undecided school board members who simply gave up and went home after a 2-1/2-hour discussion. Rob Daniel, "School board: No decision yet on superintendent; Board members may discuss hire Tuesday," Iowa City Press-Citizen, April 26, 2010, p. A1.

I do have sympathy for them. I do. I've been there, done that. I'm grateful they're willing to serve -- up to and including giving over their Sunday evenings to Board business.

But honestly, what does it take to get a decision, a commitment, out of this gang? It's four months they've been at this; see, "The Plugge Era: 1999-2010," December 24, 2009; "School Board Can't Do Job? There They Go Again," January 7, 2010 (and roughly a year on boundary changes yet to be decided). As I understand it, they've had the input of a search committee, a full list of possibles, two rounds of interviews with the three who became finalists, each of whom on this last round spent a day of tours and meetings in the District, capped off with a 45-minute "meet and greet" with the public and an hour-plus in a public interview Q-and-A on camera. Board members have had the benefit of numerous newspaper stories and opinion pieces in the three local newspapers (and, he adds modestly, now nine all-too-lengthy entries in this blog, linked above). They've had plenty of time to do their own, individual calling around the finalists' communities. The video of the public interviews were supposed to have run over this past weekend; so there's been at least as much exposure of the finalists to the general public as there usually would be -- with an opportunity for individuals to pass along their reactions to the Board.

Board members have essentially four possible choices: one through three are to select any one of the three finalists; choice four is to reject all three and do another search. The Gazette reports that the Board is leaning in none of those directions: "as board President Patti Fields put it, members have not eliminated any of the three candidates." "No Decision Yet on New IC Superintendent," The Gazette, April 26, 2010, p. A3. The Wausau Daily Herald reports that "School Board President Patti Fields said the board hoped to have a decision in the next few days." "Superintendent Awaits Job News," Wausau Daily Herald, April 27, 2010.

Our Board members are well educated, experienced, well-intentioned, politically sensitive and otherwise able individuals -- unpaid volunteers, generously giving of their time. The problem seems to be, as is so often the case with boards without a fully considered and applied governance model, what happens when they try to function as a group. See Patti Fields Blog.

You may have seen this poster about "Meetings," with the caption: "None of us is as dumb as all of us." [Credit: Despair, Inc.]

Offered an opportunity to have the "last word" in this blog series (see "Finalists Responses? Decision Sunday? Finalists Offered Last Word," April 24, 2010), Steve Murley did his best to come to our Board's defense; see "IC Supers' Email: Bezek Responds, Murley & Meeks Don't; Constituent Relations Important -- But No Deal Breaker," April 25, 2010 (contrary to the heading, Murley did respond, but too late to make the original publication, so was inserted at the bottom of the original blog entry; and as of late morning today Brad Meeks also had a reply, also at the bottom of that blog entry).

Steve Murley wrote, in pertinent part, "You stated that, 'Indeed, one should be extremely suspicious of anyone who would be willing to be considered for the job of working with such a school board.' Your comment was made in reference to concerns that you enumerated about the lack of a clear governance system, delineation of measurable goals, discussion of educational innovations, and absence of metrics for results measurement related to boundary changes. I am in full agreement with you that these are indeed important issues for the Board to tackle. However, the absence of these does not indicate to me that the Board has chosen to ignore them or that the Board thinks they are unworthy of attention."

In short, in my words: "wherever our Board members may be headed, they just ain't there yet."
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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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