Category: GFPS

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Is the Great Falls Public School District on the right path or the wrong path?

E-City Beat’s dialogue, and yes criticism, about the way the Great Falls Public School District operates has brought out two distinct camps of thought; one that has serious doubts about the managerial skills exhibited by the district’s administration, and the other being the ardent supporters of the district’s actions. Who is right, and who is wrong, and can we measure the successes, or failures when it comes to our children’s education?

According to a recent U.S. News and World Report article, “Best High Schools Ranking”, 2018, Montana High Schools, Great Falls High School and CMR High School didn’t make the top twelve and both were unranked.

Here is the criteria used by U.S. News and World Report to rank high schools in Montana, and all states:

“* STEP 1 | Students exceeded expectations in their states.

We looked at whether each school’s relative performance in its state reading and mathematics assessments exceeded expectations, factoring in the proportion of its student body that is economically disadvantaged and projected to score lower.

* STEP 2 | Underserved students performed better than the state average.

Next, we compared each school’s reading and mathematics assessment scores among only their historically underserved students – black, Hispanic and low-income – with the average statewide results for these subgroups. We selected schools that outperformed their state averages.

* STEP 3 | Student graduation rates met a threshold.

We excluded schools from consideration if their graduation rates were lower than 80 percent.

* STEP 4 | Students were prepared for college-level coursework.

For schools passing the first three steps, we calculated a College Readiness Index based on the percentages of each school’s students who took and passed AP and IB exams. Tiebreakers determined the ranks of schools achieving the same CRI.”

The number one ranked high school in Montana is Gardiner High School which has a graduation rate of 86 percent and a college readiness of 52.5. In comparison, Great Falls High School has a graduation rate of 82 percent and a college readiness score of 13.3. CMR High School has a graduation rate of 85 percent and a college readiness score of 13.6.

The number two ranked high school in Montana is Bozeman High School with a college readiness score of 47.2. Number three is Sentinel High School with a 91 percent graduation rate and a college readiness score of 47.7. These are followed by Helena High School, Whitefish High School, Baker High School, and so on.

The number 11th ranked high school in Montana is Polson High School with a graduation rate of 87 percent and a college readiness score of 16.3.

The dismal truth behind the Great Falls graduation rate is that 18% of GFHS and 15% of CMR students don’t graduate from high school. And that doesn’t count the students who have been transferred to the Paris Gibson alternative school, as I explain below.

Enough said about high school rankings, let’s take a closer look at graduation rates. A 2015 article in nprED addresses some of the issues surrounding graduation rates.

Graduation rates are a hot button for taxpayers who are paying the freight for our public schools and school districts are well aware of that fact. The article explores how some school districts are cooking the books when it come to graduation rates.

“Some are mislabeling students or finding ways of moving them off the books. In Chicago, reports Becky Vevea of WBEZ, ‘the district is misclassifying hundreds of students who enroll in its alternative schools.’

That designation means that when a Chicago student leaves a traditional high school for an alternative school, the district doesn’t have to count that student as a dropout. But if the student manages to earn a diploma, the district still gets credit.”

Believe it or not, this is the practice of Great Falls Public Schools. So we have to ask whether the District is cooking the books to make the numbers look better than they actually are?

And then there is “Credit Recovery” as a means to improve graduation rates. Again, more from the nprED article:

“Credit recovery is as old as extra credit and summer school. It used to be granted mostly at teachers’ and schools’ discretion. But in recent years, with great pressure to improve graduation rates, it went big. For-profit companies like K12, National High School and The Keystone School began offering mostly online courses for high school credit.

‘Some of these credit-recovery programs frankly aren’t terribly rigorous and aren’t preparing students well for what’s next,’ says Daria Hall, director of K-12 policy development at The Education Trust, a nonprofit education research group.”

Where do these school district questionable policies originate? They are the brain children of school district administrations and they are condoned by school boards that are asleep at the switch.

As one doctorate-holding concerned community member said during a discussion of a potential school bond levy, “The district needs to show honest quantifiable positive results before you ask the community for more money”. Makes sense to me.

Next, E-City Beat will present what we think are the real qualifications for a new superintendent.

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We challenge our readers to take 4 minutes and watch the video we’ve linked below from the Open The Books website. It’s quite revealing and a little shocking.

And we would like to remind our readers how much money our Great Falls Public Schools Superintendent and top administrators are making, as we noted in an April, 2018 piece:

“As of June 30, 2017 Montana’s Governor’s salary was $108,167 – GFPS Superintendent Tammy Lacey’s salary is $150,000. The State of Montana’s Superintendent of Public Instruction earned a salary of $104,635 – GFPS Assistant Ruth Ueker’s salary is $122,020.”

Apparently $150,000 isn’t enough, because GFPS has advertised the salary for a new superintendent as follows “$160,000 – $175,000 plus competitive benefits”.

(The application period has closed so the closing date in the notice, Nov. 30, 2019, is apparently a typo.)

https://www.facebook.com/openthebooks/videos/2200994406889227/

Open The Books

Below you will find the District provided list from earlier this year of Administrative positions and corresponding salaries totaling $4,593,558.00, including days contracted. From the total amount the District notes that $326,319.00 is not paid from the General Fund.

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Great Falls Public Schools Superintendent Tammy Lacey’s recent Tuesday proclamation included a defense from the complaints by students and parents that some of the classrooms in the District are too cold and uncomfortable.

One of the comments from a reader on the E-City Beat Facebook page actually referred to local students shivering in a cold classroom with coats on as “whiny butts”. Really?

In Item 4 Facility update, From Tammy’s Top Ten on Tuesday December 4, 2018, Tammy observes that: “The cold weather that comes with winter has arrived in Great Falls. That means it’s time to turn up the heat and we can do just that thanks to the bond levy passage in October, 2016.” That statement appears to be partially right, and partially wrong. Yes, it is customary that the weather in Great Falls gets colder in October and November. But does the District’s ability to plan ahead and turn up the heat have anything do with the passage of the 2016 facilities bond election, or does it have more to do with the District’s attempt to save on utilities expenses? Tammy adds: “Some rooms are too warm while others can be a bit chilly on Monday mornings or because the heat has turned down over longer breaks to conserve precious budget dollars”.

It makes one wonder whether there are any offices at the Administration building on the hill that are “a bit chilly”. Do any of the folks up there making $100 – $150 grand a year have to start funding drives to buy space heaters for their work areas to “conserve precious budget dollars”?

One example of why utilities expense has trumped student comfort for a very long time can be illustrated by the lack of adequate fresh air ventilation at Great Falls High. In 1966, with the window replacement project, the district decided that bringing fresh air into the building and exhausting CO2 enriched air added to the utilities cost. Keep in mind that CO2 enriched air is injurious to your health and cognitive ability. Flu virus loves CO2 enriched air. Great for a school, right?

When the temperature drops, air brought into the structure by mechanical means, commonly referred to as forced air ventilation, requires that the outside air brought in has to be tempered. That means heating costs rise.

In spite of the fact that the original ventilation system was adequate to serve the building, the District turned it off. To make matters worse, the District boarded up all of the windows that passively supplied fresh air to the classrooms and other spaces in the building.

Turn up the heat!

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THIS JUST IN!

For all of those requiring verification that Great Falls Public Schools system has heating problems, take a look at this:

“Mrs Rossberg’s room (105) is unnecessarily cold. Recent problems with the school heating system has led to this room’s temperature being neglected. The worst part of winter is coming and we need heat! We are planning on buying the DeLonghi EW7707CM Safe Heat 1500W ComforTemp Portable Oil-Filled Radiator. ($64.27 on Amazon.com). $75 will be raised to cover shipping + processing fees for the GoFundMe platform. Help make room 105 bearable again!”

Here’s the link to the GoFundMe page.

The picture is of students in Room 105 at Great Falls High School and the fundraising page was posted 11/27/18, two days ago. E-City Beat was just notified by a local citizen who sent us the link. We checked with the District and indeed Mrs. Rossberg is a teacher at GFHS.

These are real Great Falls kids in a real Great Falls classroom who are really cold.

E-City Beat will be donating $50 to the cause because apparently $98M wasn’t enough to keep our kids warm.

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Popsicles are meant to be frozen, not kids.

Since the passage of the 2016 $98M school bond, the new construction is popping up all over the district, but what about the repairs that were needed to existing schools? The taxpayers were told over and over again what bad shape our schools were in after 50 plus years of insufficient maintenance. The district’s sales job for securing election success included endless pictures of broken pipes, toilets that didn’t work, octopus electrical conditions, and boilers that looked like they came up the Missouri on river boats.

I have maintained that the district administration was much more interested in showy new construction, much of it in my opinion demonstrating poor planning and architectural design, than in keeping students warm, safe and well ventilated. With the blessings of the current school board, the administration destroyed trees that they didn’t own, constructed new school facilities on property that was too small and couldn’t accommodate sufficient parking for staff, bought neighborhood properties without the consent of the voters and said NO to life-saving fire sprinkler systems.

E-City Beat doesn’t make a practice of publishing anonymously written pieces, but has in the past done so when warranted, as in the case from May of this year when we published a powerful piece by an anonymous mother concerning child safety issues. Following are excerpts from a confirmed and very reliable source who fears retribution if credited.

Received by E-City Beat – 11-27-1:

“I am tired of the bullshit the school district is putting our kids, community and employees through…”

“There are currently several schools that do not have heat in them due to the boiler systems being broken. One school has been like this since the beginning of the year!”

“Is this even legal to allow our kids to be in a learning environment where they cannot provide adequate heating for them??? My concern is what about when it gets even colder outside, if for instance this one schools boiler has been broken for over 2 months now!!”

“…what does the administration care for, they have there nice cozy warm offices at “the hill” and their ridiculous paychecks…”

“They have run this school district into the ground and it keeps getting worse. I just hope the new superintendent can clean this mess up and fix this. I was under the impression that the bond that passed was for fixing up these schools and for the new ones. Then why do some have no heat??? I would think the district would invest in adequate heating and cooling systems before building new schools, but they aren’t concerned with that.”

“It honestly wouldn’t surprise me if they didn’t have the money to fix the existing schools because they are more concerned with making sure these new schools have the newest most expensive and greatest stuff out there, so they probably have no money.”

“…they waste a lot of money on unnecessary stuff that does not help the kids at all with there learning experience in these schools.”

E-City Beat encourages readers and other citizens of Great Falls to submit information that is timely and of interest to the public, even if it requires that the reporting authors request anonymity.

 

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The following is from the Great Falls Public Schools Board meeting agenda, 11-12-18 page 62. We have some additional information and questions at the end.

“TOPIC
Proposed District Office and Warehouse Complex Study/Design

BACKGROUND
On October 4, 2016, the elementary and high school bond elections were approved by the voters. As a part of the bond sale the district received a premium on the sale of the bonds. The district has also accrued interest on the bond funds that have not been expended for identified projects. Since the bond election, the District has identified additional facility needs that the bond premium and interest monies can fund. This proposal addresses three of those needs:

1. A relocation of the offices currently on the 2nd floor of the warehouse (School Food Service and Music/Art) in order to address ADA accessibility needs of their customers;

2. A relocation of the offices currently on the 2nd floor of the warehouse (School Food Service and Music/Art) in order to address safety egress issues; and

3. The relocation of a large piece of food packaging equipment that is used to package approximately 300,000 salads, sandwich combos and fresh fruit/vegetable servings annually. It is currently located at Longfellow. It is recommended to find a more suitable location for a variety of food service and warehouse efficiencies. An architectural study and resultant design would provide expertise in how to accomplish the objectives above in the most efficient and cost effective ways.

DISCUSSION
The Board is requested to take action to approve the study to include the dissemination, as per Montana Codes Annotated, of a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) for architectural services to design a remodel and/or addition to the District Office Complex to address the needs above. The RFQ will be published in the Great Falls Tribune. The RFQ will be posted on the district website at http://www.gfps.k12.mt.us/content/facility-action.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS
The architectural study and work will be completed by the selected professional and will be paid with bond premium and interest proceeds. The Board will be asked to approve the resultant design, estimated construction costs and fund sources of the remodel and/or addition at a later date.”

During the meeting and discussion Superintendent Tammy Lacey responded to a question about the amount of the premium and accrued interest saying it was $7-$9 million.

Keep in mind that by Montana statute, bond proceeds to be spent must be specifically identified in the ballot language.

Here are some questions we are going to attempt to get answers to in the coming days and weeks:

Were the new projects outlined in this agenda item identified in the original bond ballot language? If not, is it legal or right to use proceeds from the bond to pay for the projects?

Was there any discussion by anyone in the Administration or on the school board about the possibility of finding a mechanism to return the windfall of $7-$9 million to local taxpayers? If not, why not?

Did Superintendent Lacey or any of the school board trustees know about the likelihood or possibility of a multi-million dollar bonus as a result of the bond interest and premium?

Shouldn’t we wait to see if the already identified and approved projects are on budget before we spend taxpayer money on new projects? Shouldn’t we demand some accounting on current projects first?

If any of our readers have any information that may be helpful in answering these questions please contact us ASAP. Thank you.

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By now most property owners have received their pre-Thanksgiving gifts from the Cascade County tax folks. A significant amount of the universal tax increase is due to the 2016 $98M school bond passage, the last 1/3 of the bond sale is now reflected in your tax amounts.

Once you have recovered from the initial shock, it would be a good time to ask how the school district is doing in spending that 1/10 of a billion dollars of your hard-earned money.

What was touted by the school district was to accomplish not only repairs to our aging schools, but to build two brand new elementary schools to replace Roosevelt and Longfellow. In addition the school district planned major new construction at CMR and Great Falls High. To this end, the school district promised to “spread the work around” to the benefit of the larger economy of Great Falls. Did that really happen?

The result was that out of the four major projects, one architectural firm received both the new Giant Springs Elementary (replacement for Roosevelt) and the new Longfellow Elementary. One general contractor received three major projects, Giant Springs, Longfellow, and the granddaddy of them all, the Great Falls High School additions and renovations totaling approximately $68M. The general contract for CMR was approximately $8M.

None of the general construction contracts were competitively bid! They were awarded based on subjectively awarded cost-plus alternative delivery contracts. For those who don’t know, here are brief definitions and an explanation of the differences between cost-plus and competitive bidding:

Cost-Plus (Time And Material) With Fixed Fee

In the case of a Cost-Plus contract, there is typically a lack of detailed plans. With this contract, the general contractor is paid for all costs accumulated, and paid a fee for overhead and profit as well as general conditions while the owner assumes all risks of excessive costs. It’s common for the general contractor to use an incentive provision to motivate cost savings.

Competitive, or lump-sum, bidding

The lump-sum contract is when the contractor agrees to complete all work for a pre-determined price including profit and the contract.

The school district’s selection committees were comprised of district employees and elected school board members, none of whom were licensed design professionals, or construction engineers.

Montana law allows for alternate project delivery contracts, without competitive bidding.

18-2-502. Alternative project delivery contract — authority — criteria. (1) Subject to the provisions of this part, a state agency or a governing body may use an alternative project delivery contract. 

But cautions that:

(3) The state agency or the governing body shall make a detailed written finding that in using an alternative project delivery contract will not: (a) encourage favoritism or bias awarding the contract; or (b) substantially diminish competition for the contract. (Emphasis added.)

Without a trained and experienced selection committee, do you think favoritism could be a problem?

Because of the inherent dangers of the alternative project delivery cost-plus option, the State of Montana specifically makes such contract invalid and illegal as follows:

Cost-Plus System Invalid

MCA18-2-314. Cost-plus system invalid. Any contracts made by, on behalf of, or for the state of Montana which shall directly or indirectly recognize the cost-plus system or principle shall be void and of no effect and this section shall stand as a notice of the invalidity of any such contract.

The fact is that Great Falls has several capable and experienced construction firms and the best way to insure that the taxpayers are getting the best bang for their tax bucks is to give all firms the opportunity to competitively bid on public projects.

Favoritism, cronyism, and bias should not be even remotely tolerated.

Judging from the Office of Political Practices C-6 reporting forms for YES for Great Falls Kids, June 23, 2016, most Great Falls contractors might know how the game is played here. The following lists pre-election donations to the YES political action committee whose primary purpose was to advocate and campaign for voter passage of the school bond, tax proceeds which would go towards paying private construction companies:

Dick Anderson Construction $5,000

Tabacco Investments, LLC $4,000

Bradley Talcott $10,000

Editor’s Note: E-City Beat recently learned that the Great Falls Public School District made $7M-$9M of interest on your bond tax dollars and plans to spend it as they see fit instead of returning it to the property tax payers of Great Falls. Maybe they will elect to cut down more of our trees, or damage Great Falls High more than they already have?

You be the judge if the school district is acting in the best interests of the taxpayers and vote in our poll.

[poll id=”15″]

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The reaction to Great Falls Public Schools Superintendent Tammy Lacey’s recent resignation was as one would expect, polarized. Some folks celebrated Lacy’s departure, and some, typically those “riding for the brand”, bemoaned what they believed was a significant loss to the District.

The dichotomy of Lacey’s tenure can be reduced to her actions, good and bad. On one hand she was the consummate salesperson for the District; she was everywhere. From basketball games to bar mitzvahs. It appears that is what she was hired to do, not to make strategic decisions, or engage in any long-range planning for the District. After all, she was an administrator and nothing more.

In the absence of Lacey, the District will go on, a new superintendent will be found, and with that, one has to ask if anything will change? Will the public play any role in the selection of Lacey’s replacement as some of our readers have suggested? Will the union push for someone from the same mold?

The process is already beginning:

“Tammy’s Top Ten for Tuesday September 18, 2018

The next Board meeting is on Monday, September 24 at 5:30 at the District Office Building, 1100 4th St. S. An agenda item of note includes decisions around advertising for the new superintendent to replace me after my retirement on June 30, 2019. The full agenda and supporting information will be posted on the afternoon of September 20 at this link: www.gfps.k12.mt.us/content/school-board.”

One issue that needs to be addressed is that of the proliferation of conflicts of interest at the school district. Montana law defines Ethical requirements for public officers and public employees as follows: MCA 2-2-105 (4),

One issue that needs to be addressed is that of the proliferation of conflicts of interest at the school district.

(4) When a public employee who is a member of a quasi-judicial board or commission or of a board, commission, or committee with rulemaking authority is required to take official action on a matter as to which the public employee has a conflict created by a personal or private interest that would directly give rise to an appearance of impropriety as to the public employee’s influence, benefit, or detriment in regard to the matter, the public employee shall disclose the interest creating the conflict prior to participating in the official action.

As an example of “giving rise to an appearance of impropriety as to the public employee’s influence” occurred at the August 22, 2011 meeting of the GFPS Board of Trustees; the award of a $150K architectural and engineering study of Great Falls High School. Laura Vukasin who is the president of a Great Falls bank and sits on the bank’s board of directors along with the principal of the local architectural firm which was awarded the contract. She not only voted in favor of the award, but also made the motion. It should also be noted that as president of the bank, she serves at the pleasure of the bank’s board of directors. Do you see an appearance of impropriety in this action?

Fast forward to the award of the architectural contract for the new Giant Springs Elementary School in 2017. Trustee Vukasin did the same thing. She voted to award a $1M+ contract to the same architectural firm.

On August 20, 2018, the school board voted to award the architectural contract for the new Longfellow Elementary School to the same architectural firm. Trustee Vukasin did not attend the August 20, 2018 meeting, but my guess is that she would have voted in favor just like she had done twice before.

(From the 8/20/18 minutes: “F. Committee Recommendation of Architect for the Longfellow Elementary School Project – Director of Business Operations Brian Patrick, reported that the previous Friday had been spent conducting interviews with the five architectural firms selected for interviews. He reported that the interview committee is recommending 36 L’Heureaux Page Werner (LPW) Architecture be awarded the architect contract for the Longfellow Elementary School project pending successful fee negotiations. Motion – Kim Skornogoski, Second – Teresa Schreiner, passed unanimously, to 40 approve L’Heureaux Page Werner (LPW) Architecture as the architect firm for the 41 Longfellow Elementary School project”)

Time for a change in the school board?

Trustee Vukasin is up for re-election next Spring and hopefully she will have the opportunity to spend more time with the grand-kids too.

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