Beth Zurbuchen isn’t the only pro-referenda advocate who cannot understand referenda opponents who support quality schools but will vote no to force the board and administration to consider better budgeting, management, and curriculum.
Bill Keys said, quoting a Cap Times article:

To school board member Bill Keys, “the people who have doubts about the referendum seem to belong to two camps.”
One, he said, is composed of those who oppose additional school funding whenever the opportunity comes along. . . .
“These people are always against education,” he contended. “That’s their history, that’s their life. They’ve made a career of being against education.”
In the other camp are those, he said, who just don’t want to engage in the complexities of the problem and study the real constraints that exist in school finance.

In a Cap Times story on Thursday, May 12, the superintendent seems to be trying to:
1. Control the news by telling the paper how to report on board action.
2. Tell Johnny Winston, Jr. that what Johnny thinks is irrelevant to the superintendent.
3. Put the board in its place by telling it that he will cut strings if the referendum fails, no matter what resolution the board passes.
Fortunately, Johnny seems to be speaking up.

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Lee Sensenbrenner disects Carol Carstensen’s committee assignments, including the “exiling” of Ruth Robarts to the Legislative Committee.

Lee Sensenbrenner summarizes Monday’s Madison Schools Board of Education Meeting.
Sensenbrenner also mentioned that one of the panelists on the East High School Search Committee was told that she cannot speak with the “press”.
Finally, Superintendent Art Rainwater introduced the District’s latest Strategic Plan (PDF here).

Read the story in the Capital Times online.
Ed

On Monday, April 25, the Madison School Board will hold a special session to vote on a plan that affects hundreds of west side families and six to eight elementary schools in the event that the May 24 referendum to build a second school on the Leopold site fails.
Options before the Board do not mention the drastic changes taking place in the Ridgewood apartment complex that is near Leopold Elementary School and home to many current Leopold students and their families. While it appears increasingly likely that the large low income community near Leopold will be displaced by changes in ownership of the apartment complex, the Board will be voting on plans that do not take this factor into account. Instead, at the insistence of Board member Carol Carstensen, the Board seems poised to lock into

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Janet Morrow says that the “fact” that the public has lost confidence in the Madison Board of Education is a “lie”. She points to the Boards reaction to the District Administration’s recent proposed Boundary changes as an example of their listening and acting on public input.

The proposed Leopold Expansion discussion continues:

• Visiting with some Leopold Parents at a recent event, a number of points were discussed:
  • Parking is currently a problem and will be worse as the school expands.
  • “We keep taking away their playground space. Where are all of the children going to play? They need space to run around.”
  • “Why can’t Madison build a school in Fitchburg (ie, closer to where all the homes are going in)? Verona has – Stoner Prairie, in Fitchburg [Map illustrating Leopold & Stoner Prairie]. Many homes are as far from Verona shools (in Fitchburg) as they are from Leopold.”
  • “Where are all of these children going to go after Leopold?” “Will they be bused over to a Memorial/Middle School combination?”
  • “I’m concerned about the (proposed) shared library and cafeteria. Will they be adequately staffed for a school this size? The previous addition did not address the lunch room and library needs.
  • “I don’t want to pay any more taxes, it seems like every year we have a budget crisis but my taxes continue to go up. Couldn’t they plan better?”
• Arlene Silviera is puzzled about Ruth Robarts recent questions regarding the size of the proposed Leopold school.

Bill Keys, President of the MMSD School Board, chose to attack Ruth Robarts today in The Capital Times saying she was not the first board member to be concerned about the taser incident. Bill Keys’ letter seems to be unnecessarily spiteful and misses the point that was raised in The Capital Times’ editorial on February 15, 2005 . The editorial ended:
“Robarts is asking questions that need to be asked. And she is doing so in a thoughtful, forward-looking manner that invites the rest of the board and the community to join in a debate that needs to take place.”
There was no criticism of the School Board – just praise for raising questions publicly, which is what the School Board needs to do in a situation where children’s safety is an issue. The taser incident happened at Memorial High School on January 21, 2005. The incident was first reported in The Wisconsin State Journal on January 31, 2005, 10 days after the incident took place. In that article, Ruth Robarts commented that:
“School Board member Ruth Robarts said she was concerned that she didn’t hear about the incident until a reporter’s phone call.” I find this incredible that she would hear about an issue such as this nearly 10 days after it happened from the press.
In that same article “Member Bill Clingan said it’s appropriate that police authority trumps the school’s, and that the incident is a police issue. But as an individual, he doesn’t like to hear that a youth was subdued with a Taser.”
What’s missing – board governance. Neither Bill Keys, as president of the School Board, nor Bill Clingan, as vice president of the school board, did not appear to notify their colleagues about the incident in a timely manner; because, as it turns out, it’s not clear from public documents when they learned of the incident. How can that be? I would expect the first question Bill Keys might ask Superintendent Rainwater is: Why wasn’t the Board notified of this incident (at least before board members were contacted by the press) and what steps are you taking?
However, after learning about the incident, our School Board officers did not put the incident on a school board special session agenda so that they could 1) hear a public update about the incident from the Superintendent and what he was doing (such as, hiring an outside attorney to undertake an investigation), 2) provide the community with information about the incident that could be presented publicly and 3) have a public board discussion about next steps and what, if any, additional direction from the board to the Superintendent was needed. As an alternative, either school board officer could have written a letter to the paper about what the school board was doing to address the issue, complementing the questions raised by Ruth Robarts and letting the community know that this issue was of great concern to the board and that other board members were equally concerned as Ms. Robarts and were asking similar questions.
Instead, the public heard nothing from the school board president or vice president about an issue of importance to them (student safety) and what the school board would be doing. Rather than taking the opportunity to keep us updated, Mr. Keys decided more than one month after the taser incident to attack his colleague rather than thanking her for what she said, letting the public know what other board members were doing, and updating the public about what steps would be taken.

Lee Sensenbrenner writing in The Capital Times on February 22, 2005:
“You’re manipulating my vote,” said Mary Kay Battaglia, who has children at Crestwood Elementary and Jefferson Middle School. “You’re giving me a choice to move my child and 1,100 others or to vote for a referendum I don’t think is necessary.”…
…Board member Bill Clingan said that the board was neither efficient nor intelligent enough to be manipulative…

From the editorial page:

The Madison Metropolitan School District administration, which seems to be determined to offend every supporter of public education in the city and surrounding communities, was recently forced to back off from a foolish proposal to close two east side elementary schools and a middle school. But the administration is still recommending that Emerson Elementary School be closed.

Lucy Mathiak adds to the Leopold referendum discussion.
More here.

Lucy Mathiak:

Dear Editor: I am writing in response to Bill Clingan’s Jan. 27 letter regarding the second Leopold School. A second school is long overdue. It is the right thing to do.
While there is no doubt that Mr. Clingan will be a vocal advocate for the Leopold referendum, one wonders where his passion for this initiative was in 2003-04 when he chaired the Long Range Planning Committee. As chair, he had the power to move the school forward, and he squandered that opportunity.
According to the school district Web site, the Long Range Planning Committee met a total of three times under Mr. Clingan’s leadership. Planning for a Leopold building referendum was not an agenda item at any of those meetings. The committee did not meet again while Mr. Clingan was the chair.

In an editorial in today’s Capital Times, School Board unity is identified as a key factor before deciding on going to a referendum. I couldn’t agree more with this editorial.
At this point in their deliberations, MMSD’s School Board is not ready to make a decision to go to referendum(s), because they have more work to complete and more discussions are needed with the public before making these important decisions. And, I do not count public hearings as conversations with the public.
Board members must be united and they must be able to present a complete, viable package to the public where they can demonstrate other options considered and decisions that led them to this as the best choice for our children’s education.
What is some of the work yet to do? Before voting on Leopold, review updated options for boundary changes and school closings. You won’t have a successful vote on a new school at Leopold if you vote to go to referendum on Leopold in January and come back in February with suggested closings on the east side of Madison. That won’t work.
The “maintenance referendum” is only one part of the operating budget. School Board members need to have the complete budget, and they need to know what the estimate of all revenues are for next year. Waiting for a same service budget won’t get them there and won’t let the Board make the decisions about where scarce resources are allocated. Board members need to begin a process to look out 3-5 years and tell Madison voters what our schools need to be successful, how much that will cost and what options do we have for funding our investment in education.
As a minor aside, the administration continues to tell the board that the maintenance referendum will not cost any additional property tax dollars. Wait a minute – isn’t it the School Board’s decision about how to finance their operating budget. Why wouldn’t School Board members want the “no tax increase option” to go toward the general operating budget.
Let’s get the whole picture – our children cannot afford piecemeal approaches to decisionmaking. Our children deserve leadership and hard work from our School Board members without threats that this list will be cut if you don’t vote yes on a referendum. That option won’t cut it with the voters.
As the Capital Times Editorial writes, “…voters have a right to expect that any referendums placed before the community will have the support of all board members, including Robarts, who was re-elected by an overwhelming margin last year despite the fact that she faced an able opponent and a concerted campaign against her. Robarts is not always right, but she is never so wrong that board members should feel comfortable going into a referendum fight without her.”
Robarts’ Long Range Planning Conmmittee, which she chairs, and the public advisory committee, which she asked the board to form, have been working hard and asking good questions. The advisory committee’s discussions have been substantive and well thought out. The advisory committee’s continued work on the school and maintenance issues will make an important contribution to referendum decisions by board members.
Had Bill Clingan, who, chaired Long Range Planning Committee last year convened his committee from late December 2003 through mid-April 2004, the current members of the Long Range Planning Committee might be further ahead in the process and Leopold Elementary parents would be in a new school in Fall 2006 vs. Fall 2007. Four months of no meetings last year potentially delayed the overall process and opening of the new Leopold School by one year – that’s an unfair burden for the kids.
Continue Reading Editorial: School Board Must Show Unity

By Lee Sensenbrenner, The Capital Times
December 11, 2004
A hiring freeze has been declared in the Madison Metropolitan School District, as Superintendent Art Rainwater tries to deal with a possible $1 million shortfall in the utilities budget.
Rainwater made the announcement Friday in a letter to board members and the district’s management team. It says that “the prospect remains that additional actions may be required.”
Link to Full Story – Schools Freeze Hiring

Lee Sensenbrenner writes:

Board President Bill Keys said any talk of closing a school is “very preliminary” and rests on enrollment forecasts for 2010.
He said, though, that it was important for people to know that a school closure is among the options the district is putting forward.
“It might be necessary,” he said, “but it’s not something that’s desirable.”

“Madison School District parents could face a difficult community discussion next spring over whether to close one of the district’s 30 elementary schools.
Superintendent Art Rainwater said Thursday that all options, including closing a school, must be considered to deal with an expected shift in student population from the city’s East and North sides to the South and West sides.”
Story continues at the State Journal.

Lee Sensenbrenner on the MMSD’s recent board discussion regarding after school services (The District is attempting to replace privately funded after school services with those paid for by Madison taxpayers – via Fund 80, which is not capped by state revenue limitations.).