Dr. Forney's News and Ideas

November 15, 2011 is, by decree of the General Assembly, School Board Member Day in Illinois. It is a day upon which people are encouraged to take a moment and express thanks to the women and men in each school district who hold positions on the Board of Education and commit to countless hours of service to providing public governance to the local public schools. I hope everyone does something, whether it is an email, a phone call, or a nice note or card of thanks to the board members in both this and other districts. In Illinois, School Board members serve with no financial compensation and no expectation of anything but a full helping of responsibility on his or her plate. They sit “in trust” for the rest of the voters in a school district, meaning that they are to consider issues and vote according to their conscience and with the best interests of the school district’s taxpayers and students in mind. Their number one priority should be, and in our district is, the improvement of learning. They are your neighbor, your relative, a member of your church circle, or your child’s soccer league coach. They might be a doctor who goes directly from post-op to a Board meeting, or a real estate professional who drives directly to the Board meeting from showing a home; they may be a pastor who plans on heading off to the hospital for rounds directly after the meeting wraps up, or they might be a stay at home mother who cooks, cleans, care for children and caps her busy day off by going to a 3 hour Board meeting.

They do not always make decisions that are universally popular, but they always make them with their best judgement. They are only in this for the students, and hope to make a positive contribution to their communities through their efforts in school governance. It is through the service of citizens serving on the school board that the community retains and exerts local control of the school systems and insures that the values of the community are considered in educational decisions. They grow into the realization that educators deserve great respect, but that some things still need to improve. They do all of this simply for the joy of doing well.

Please take time on November 15 to tell your local school board members how much you appreciate the job they do. I want to let my board, namely Erik Plotner, Greg Wolfe, Deanna Morton, Sue Johnson, Bryan Obenland, Teresa Cronk, and Heather McArty, know that I respect the responsibility they assume and appreciate the role they play in the life of Unit 76. As I enter my last 8 months on the job as the superintendent, I value their work and the relationship we have as we work together to lead the schools of our community.

The process leading to the finalizing of the purchase of a building to serve as our Unit Office is progressing. The Board took action earlier to sign a contract for the purchase of the former VASE office building at 12190 US Route 150, near the intersection of US 150 and I-74. The price was a reasonable $255,000 for 10,000 sq.ft, and included 4 acres of undeveloped property adjacent to the building. That corresponds to $25.50/sq.ft., an amount that we did not dream would be possible when we began the search for a new office. Most sources told us to plan on $50-$100/sq. ft. if we wanted anything that would not require extensive remodeling and upgrading.

Three years ago we asked our architect to do a projection on what it would cost the district to upgrade our current office to a state of structural soundness and modernization. This did not include any additions to the current office, which was built as the home provided to the superintendent of the original township high school. The projected cost was over $300,000. What are the problems with the current office? Well, to start with, years ago the decision was made to remodel the interior and remove some walls. One, that used to divide the place where our conference table sits from the main office area, was a support wall for the second story. We have numerous records upstairs and, at that time, stored other valuable things in the second floor. Very quickly it was noticed that the upstairs floor sagged to the middle. The archway that used to be the doorway of that now-removed wall has a large crack in it, and the crack continues into the plaster wall beside the archway and extends towards the floor. There is one restroom, and it is not ADA-compliant. In fact, there are no doorways or doors that are ADA-compliant. If we conduct remodeling that exceeds in cost 15% of the building’s value, we are forced to meet full ADA guidelines. The ramp out front of the office is too steep for a wheel chair, and the door has a raised threshold making it difficult for a wheel chair to enter the building. The Superintendent’s office is in a small corner of what used to be the front porch, an area with little to no insulation and sits over a crawl space. The basement is damp and has numerous holes in the foundation that allow birds and rodents into the building. There is no place in the entire office in which a confidential meeting can take place without cramming people into a very small area. The Superintendent’s office and adjoining foyer appears to be separating from the main part of the building. Last, but not least, the walls in the other portion are settling, causing windows to no longer close properly and stay ajar.

The District needs a proper business office, and the new location allows for all of that, plus will allow us to hold Board Meetings away from the Grade School. It will also give us plenty of room for records and supplies, and will allow the District Technology Coordinator and the Curriculum Coordinator to be housed with the Superintendent and Central Office staff. The location is away from Oakwood, but it is more central to the population distribution of our school district. All in all, it will provide an appropriate business space for the school district at a cost that was 33% less tha remodeling our current office and one-third to one-fourth of what building a new office of equal space would cost. The irony for me is that I will not have that much time to enjoy it, but it will be enjoyable to see the new Unit Office become a reality.

This year was a year of transitions. There was an unforeseen transition that came about as the result of 12 certified openings and an opening for one of our administrative staff. That transition was major enough, but then the quadruple-headed transition of a new breakfast program, a new set of bus routes, a new bus schedule and a new traffic pattern around our Grade School hit with a mighty vengeance. The stark transition this caused is still setting up reverberations through the community. On top of all of that, we are in the process of moving our office from its long-time location at 5834 East US Highway 150, near Fithian, to 12190 US Highway 150, just west of the intersection with I-74. The new building will give our office staff a safe and adequate business environment while providing the space we need to operate, all in a very cost-effective manner. Lastly, the Board of Education is enacting some management restructuring to ensure an improvement in the maintenance of our facilities. Many transitions in a short time, but all intended to do good things.

I hope people will allow our district to catch up to its own pace of change. School districts tend to absorb change pretty well, it just may take some time for that to occur. Some of the above-listed changes are still works in progress and will take time to clarify and play out. Several months from now the changes will be common-place. I remember very well a conversation I had with my mother when I took my first administrative position in 1994. I shared with her how it was so different and the unexpected challenges that went with this transition in my life. She said simply, “it seems like a lot now, but by Thanksgiving you will be old hat to you.” She was right, and I keep the same thought before me anytime we look at major transitions in our schools or careers. Allow us to try the new hats on and adjust their fit, so that in a few weeks they will be, indeed, “old hats.”

The new school year is upon us and potentail for new experiences and new successes for our students and staff. We have a dozen new teachers and a new assistant principal at our grade school. The opening day for Unit 76 is on Tuesday, August 16, which will kick off our back-to-school teacher institute. Wesley Wells, retired superintendent from Morrisonville, will be our key note speaker. Our fall teams are busy with conditioning and practice, while our buildings have had a plethora of projects completed in the past 3 months. A new year and new potential to enrich the lives of students. I am ready and i know all of our staff is as well.

There has been some media exposure to the technology gains in Unit 76 in the past 24 months, but I need to tout our accomplishments a little more. Thanks to a Federal stimulus-funded technology grant (ARRA EETT), every teaching classroom that can accommodate it has an interactive white board (SMART Technologies). There are two wireless mobile laptop labs, one in the JHS and one in the HS, for use by students and staff. A set of Neo Boards is in use at the grade school. The district already had computer work stations for each teacher, computer labs in each building for open student use (2 at the grade school and one each at the JHS and HS), and two technology classrooms at OHS.

Possessing hardware is only part of the answer. A bigger part of the technology being a benefit to education is the application that is made of hardware by the teachers. To that end, the district has invested over $75,000 in training for our staff. 5 of our teachers are certified SMART Board trainers, and the district has a full-time technology coordinator and a full-time technology worker. As one can imagine, with well over 400 separate technology devices working in Unit 76 there is a daily load of trouble-shooting and emergency calls for these two people.

However, we are not necessarily satisfied with these accomplishments. Technology is a cruel task-master; once you have all of the modern tools you can afford in place they start becoming obsolete in a few weeks. “Arriving” in the level of technology a district can boast is simply a transitory state between inadequate and up-to-date. In a very few years Unit 76 will need to begin replacing hardware and refocusing on what tools we need to employ. It is a Sisyphean task, never-ending and daunting the entire time, but it is one that a school district needs to undertake if it hopes to truly offer a 21st-century learning experience.

As a means of showing the public what we have to offer our students, the District Technology Team is hosting a “Technology Night” at OGS on Monday, April 25, from 5:30 to 6:30. Please check our story on the website (www.oakwood.k12.il.us) for a more thorough explanation. I encourage everyone to come to our school and see what can currently we offer students and staff.

However, vision needs to exceed current realities and limitations, and so it is with my on-going vision for technology in our district. The recent survey that is being conducted on-line hinted at some of the possible future with a question about technology investment for students. The question was simply an inquiry and not a forewarning, but I see things in other districts beginning to appear that tell me Unit 76 needs to explore ways to make technology learning tools more accessible on a personal level for our students if we want to offer an education that is truly geared for their future success in a world that is becoming increasingly technical and interconnected.

As I wrote earlier, this is but a vision. As of June 30, 2012, a new vision will come into play for Unit 76. A new superintendent will bring new priorities and goals, but I feel very confident that technology will continue to be a key piece of any superintendent’s vision for her or his district.

Ever since our Grade School was declared to not have made Adequate Yearly Progress for the second consecutive year, the penance has not stopped. Current Federal guidelines for all schools that want to receive Title I grant monies require what boils down to a modern day equivalent of locking an offender in the stocks in the town square and all of the local citizenry throwing rotten apples at them. The school administration sends out a letter every year asking nearby districts to open up their schools to any of our grade school students who want to transfer, tuition-free. Every year, none of our surrounding districts do, and the school staff sends parents a letter stating this. The school improvement plan is complete and updated annually. Every month, our Grade School Principal and her staff work tirelessly at bringing about effective change through the implementation of a transformative systematic approach.

So, just when all of this begins to turn the Grade School’s test score fortunes, a news article appeared in the Commercial News that identified Oakwood Grade School as an “underperforming” school  in the Vermilion County area. That statement is understandably upsetting to the administration, staff, and Board of Education. But, is it a valid statement to write?

The article correctly identifies the three “Tiers” established by the Federal government as a system to classify “underperforming” schools. The first two tiers, Tier I and Tier II, are chronically underperforming, meaning that they have repeatedly not made AYP . However, after two consecutive years in which our students with Special Needs did not meet the % required for AYP – and the size of this group required them to be identified as a separate sub-group (at least 45 students are idenitified as belonging to the group)- the entire Grade School was deemed to have not made AYP. Keep in mind that the majority of our students made AYP, and have every year.

Michelle Kimbro, the Unit 76 Curriculum Coordinator, researched the claim made in the Commercial News that Oakwood Grade School is an “underperforming school.” She went right to the source itself, the application materials prepared for all schools in Tier I, II or III. Stated quite clearly is the fcat that Tier III schools (such as Oakwood Grade School) are Tier III solely on the strength of not having attained AYP for at least two consecutive years (which was true between 2007 and 2009), and are not “persistently identified as low-achieving schools.”

This spring’s ISAT results will have a higher level of performance to attain AYP. Eighty-five percent (85%) of all eligible students must either meet or exceed the cut-off level for meets and exceeds for the school to be considered making AYP. The staff of the Grade School have worked hard to lift students up to higher levels of improvement. Yet, 85% of our students meeting or exceeding the state cut-off scores for “adequate learning” is an ambitious goal and the likelihood that we will get there, or the 92.5% that is required next year is much less than the 77.5% of last year. What is important to know for the residents of the Oakwood School District is that the Grade School is centered on improvement of teaching and learning. It is a place in which teachers stay long into the evening to grade and plan lessons, time is set aside for professional growth and reflection, and the administrative staff clarifies a vision of tetaching and the learning environment that will serve the best interests of our students well into the future-both theirs and the district’s.

So, my hope is that anyone reading this and resides in our district will take away the thought that Oakwood Grade School is a great school, one in which great teachers work hard to make it better than ever. It is a school with wonderful leadership and supported by great parents who have expectations of academic success for their children. The preoccupation of the soon to be re-focused “No Child Left Behind” act with on-going punishments and public humiliation for not meeting unreasonable expectations needs to be given short attention. The Act presupposes that the Federal government is the only entity that really cares about the quality of education in our public schools, as measured by assessments that questionable value. I can flatly state that there is not a superintendent, principal, administrator, or school board member in this part of the world that does not care about how well we educate our students and are constantly engaged in the process of educational improvement.

Dr. Keven Forney, March 24, 2011

The election is over and the State of Illinois will usher in a new slate of state, county and local officials in the new year. The race for Governor was characterized as a contest bewteen the forces of irresponsible taxation and free-spending versus the forces intent on destroying public education and the public pension systems. The truth was always someplace far away from those over-simplified characterizations. However, the results of the vote do not mean a reprieve for public education and other services. The facts are pretty dated and the problems schools will face are much the same that my colleagues and I have faced for several months.

First among those challenges is the lack of sufficient funding for the state to pay its bills. Prominent among those bills are the reimbursement schools are owed for providing mandated services, in particular student transportation and services for students who qualifiy for Special Education. Oakwood Unit 76 has not received nearly $250,000 that it is owed for student transportation services, extending back into the previous Fiscal Year, through November 15 of this current one. Special Education service is shorted neraly $115,000, again, from last FY through the start of the current one. To paraphrase the late Senator Everett Dirksen, now you are talking some real money.

There will need to be some reduction in expenditures as well as a source of new revenue. Education will not be immune to selective reductions. Fiscal discipline requires that all publicly-funded institutions feel part of the pain of pruning and gretaer efficiencies. There is a good chance that the education we will offer students begining in 2011 and extending far beyond the end of my career will look a little different than it does now. As time and the political process in Springfield passess, how different that education will be will become obvious.

A new school year is once again upon us. The anxietystudents developed in late July thinking about coming back to the friendly halls of knowledge has given way to the happy anticipation of sport events, dances, and all of the great things that go on inside the walls of our schools. The staff enters into another school year hopeful that this year is the year they make their instruction the best it has ever been. Our support staff looks forward to another 9 months with “their kids” and stand ready to make the students’ time with us as enjoyable and conducive to learning as they each are able to do.

As superintendent, I look forward to another year of testing myself as an educational leader for this great and accompished school district. I hope to be better at what I do, planning out the continuous improvement of our schools and insuring that adequate resources are allocated for education. I also have the charge of ensuring that the resources we have are responsibly managed. It is a challenge I do not take lightly and one that I hope to carry out with great success for this district.

Speaking of resources, a word is always in order about the financial resources available for our school system. The good news is, the State of Illinois is slowly making good on its obligations from last fiscal year. The bad news is that the state is yet to fully pay all promised monies from 2009-2010. The last time I checked, the sttae still owed the district ocver $200,000, with most of it being shortfalls in transportation and special education reimbursements. The weird news is that the sttae has until December 31 to close out FY 10. In other words, the General Assembly granted the state an 18-month “fiscal year” while we have to hustle to take care of our fiscal obligations by July 31 (in most cases) and August 31 (in others). In some spending areas we have until September 30 to close them out, but I think you get the picture. Those of us who do not walk the halls of power have a much tighter time frame to complete our fiscal obligations than those who do. I enter into my 8th year as a superintendent and 17th in educational leadership with the feeling that I have never seen things so chaotic and uncertain, from a financial standpoint. I totally understand that the economy has a lot to do with what we are confronting, but this problem was brewing long before the big-time banking institutions started to think about folding up shop. Public education is heavily dependent on state assistance to make it an effective weapon against poverty and ignorance for the common citizen. It does not appear to be a priority with the People Who Really Run the State, i.e., the legsilative leaders from above I-80 and east of Illinois 47.

I hope, in my remaining time in public education, I can see public education placed back as a priority. Is the state wasteful of money? Every public entity has some things it can change and re-prioritize. Is the waste enough to make a significant difference? I can’t say, but it is hard to envision several billions of dollars misspent annually. I hope to see the time that public education is no longer a political weapon that is used to leverage votes in the next election. The shift in perspective away from education as a public good is troublesome and portends nothing good for the State of Illinois and the Republic in which all 50 states reside. The stakes are too high to do otherwise.

Have a great year and I hope this school year is yet another chapter of honor in the history of Oakwood CUSD No. 76!

The last several weeks have seen a great number of people “doing their part” to help Unit 76 meet the challenge that is posed by the reduction in state funding that appears to be inevitable for the rest of this school year and for the next several school years.

The Board and Administration is doing its part by painstakingly reviewing options and costs of positions, programs, and budget items as they collaborate on a response to the looming fiscal constraint . The staff and their bargaining unit are doing their part by taking actions they can, at this time, to save money for the district, work under the conditions imposed by the district leadership, and advocate for restraint in whatever measures are put in place for 2010-2011, and beyond. The parents are doing their part by offering to give more of their time and discretionary income to keep certain features of their childrens’ educational experience alive in the schools. Finally, the residents of the Oakwood school district are doing their part by participating in the Open Forums and offering their suggestions by email, letters, and telephone.

We are all doing our part for the education of our students. There may be disagreement as to the strategies needed to best meet this time of state revenue scarcity, but everyone I mentioned all have the best interests of students at heart. The time to ask our state representative and senator to help us obtain school funding is over. I think now it is best to ask them to help find out what will be the status of funding, so the school district leadership can plan for next year and begin long-term planning for the 2011-2012 school year. As the chief financial officer of Unit 76, I can tell you that the uncertainty is debilitating for making any long-range recommendations to my Board of Education. The Board needs that information top assist in their decision-making for the future of education in this school system. The administrators in our school district need to know what things will really be like so they can begin implementing measures and assisting their staff in the transition to the conditions yet to be. The staff needs to know the certain state of funding so they can begin adjusting to the changes that will have to be made.

Through it all, eleven hundred and some young people will continue coming to school, trusting that all of the adults in their educational world are working to their best abilities to give them the best opportunity they can have to learn and grow into productive, successful young members of society. It is because of these young people that this old school warrior has trouble sleeping getting to sleep and wakes up early during this time of decisions and actions. All of us are “doing our part” and we will continue doing so, all for the sake of students.

Those of us in the public education world have been engaged in a long and never-ending conversation about what will the state funding of public K-12 schools be like in FY 2011. It is a conversation that, I am sure, has not been of much interest to anyone who does not work in education. It will become of great interest as time passes, especially to students who attend our schools, parents/guardians/relatives of those students, and our staff members. I want to explain to those who may read this and are not familiar with how schools are funded in general, and in Oakwood, specifically.

School Funding Sources: Schools in Illinois have three possible sources of revenue – State, Local, and Federal. Federal sources include such programs as Title I, II, IV, and National School Lunch Program. State sources include General State Aid and categorical program funding. Local sources are property tax, corporate personal property replacement tax, and other local revenue generators. In Unit 76, the State sources account for well over 50% of our school funding. When one considers that our budgets are balanced very narrowly to the positive side, it may be easy to see how problematic a decrease in State aid can be for our school system. In a normal year, superintendents have a fairly good idea by spring of what federal, local and state revenues their school districts should receive in the following school year. This year is far from normal.

The State Funding Outlook: There is a great deal of speculation on the level of state funding that all school districts will receive. We superintendents hear a good many opinions, but very little by way of definite decisions by the General Assembly. Especially alarming is the rumor making its rounds that the state legislature will reduce the “Foundation Level” by $700 per pupil in average daily attendance. The “Foundation Level” is the basis of the General State Aid calculation for Illinois schools. It is intended to be the cost of providing an “adequate” education for students, minus some of the non-instructional cost items incurred by school systems. That number is $6,119 per pupil in average daily attendance (Illinois funds schools based on the number that attend, not the number enrolled). reducing the Foundation Level by $700 to a new Foundation Level of $5419 (the cost of adequate education really decreased?) would translate into a decrease in General State Aid to the Oakwood schools of over $923,000. Or, about 25% decrease in state funding and roughly 10% decrease in overall revenues. Doesn’t sound like much? Couple that with projected (or feared, anticipated, and/or dreaded) reductions in other state funding sources, the actual loss of revenue could top $1.3 million.

Our District’s Response to these Fiscal Pressures: The Unit 76 Board of Education and the administrative leadership team are in a long-lasting conversation about what will have to be done to keep our district in its present advantageous financial condition. Many things have to be considered as we close out this year and prepare for the next one. We will have to tighten our metaphorical belts and prioritize what will have to maintained. There may be an opportunity for public input on cost-reductions. I encourage everyone who has a well-considered idea to participate, if and when the avenue of communication on this topic is opened.

Unit 76′s record of fiscal responsibility: The district’s instructional cost per pupil (2007-2008 data) was among the lowest in the state for unit districts. Unit 76 started the current school year with just under $2.9 million in cash reserves in the Education Fund. The percentage of our budget going to salaries and benefits was well-under the expected 80%. In short, we are not “running out of money” and are not “going to close up.” That was another rumor making its rounds this past week. No, we are in pretty sound financial shape. However, we do not have the overall reserves to simply start paying out from our accrued cash without putting our district’s long-term fiscal health at great risk. Some cost-reduction measures will be in order. Please be ready to share your thoughts, if that request is made by our Board.