By VERNON ROBISON
Moapa Valley Progress
About two dozen local parents, teachers and school administrators gathered at the Moapa Valley High School library on Thursday to meet with Clark County District (CCSD) officials in, what was being called, a “listening session.” As members and representatives of the School Operation Teams (SOTs) from each of the four local schools, the group was being asked about their experience on the teams thus far.
The SOTs were implemented last year as part of 2015 legislation to reorganize and reform the CCSD. The teams were established to bring a greater degree of autonomy away from CCSD central administration and to put it at the local school level instead. Each team is made up of school administrators, teachers, support staff, parents and community members. The teams are supposed to be the chief decision-making body for the school.
In attendance at Thursday’s meeting was CCSD Deputy Superintendent Kim Wooden. Trustee Kevin Child was also present, sitting in for Trustee Chris Garvey who was out of town for the birth of a grandchild.
Also in attendance were other CCSD central staff and administrators; as well as officials from the teachers’ union.
Wooden spoke first giving the objectives of the meeting. She explained that the reforms that were affecting CCSD had been taking place at a very fast pace. The SOTs had been assembled quickly and put into action with little preparation or training, she said. There had been little chance to pause and listen to how things were going through the school year, she said.
“Our goal this afternoon is just to listen to you,” said Wooden. “We want to hear about your experiences on these teams: the things that are going right, the challenges you are facing.”
Facilitating the conversation at the meeting. was Brian Knudsen of TS², a consulting group hired to assist CCSD with the reorganization process.
Knudsen began by asking the group to reflect on the past year’s experience in the SOTs and give feedback on elements that are working well and should not be changed.
Respondents said that the balance existing in the SOTs should remain the same. Currently the teams are equally balanced with representatives of varying interest groups: parents, teachers, staff, administrators etc. Team members said that this balance was working well.
In addition, SOT members said that the opportunity for truly open communication between the different stakeholders was beneficial to the process. Dialog between the various viewpoints had opened doors of innovation that might not have ever been experienced with each group operating on its own, respondents said.
“There is a much broader sense of collaboration now,” said MVHS teacher Lisa Cornwall who sits on the high school SOT. “Whereas before the administration might have been accustomed to working alone in their own little box, now there is more decision-making in a group and a wider range of ideas being generated. I think that is good.”
SOT members also liked the new transparency in the local school budgets. Some commented that being able to see the amount of money that the school has to work with; and then how it is allotted to cover various expenses; was an eye-opening experience. They also expressed satisfaction at having a say in the budgeting process.
When it came time to talk about improvements that might be made to the SOT system, budget matters arose once again. Team members expressed a desire to have more transparency in how funds are allocated down from CCSD central to the local schools. Dr. Larry Moses, who serves as a community representative on the MVHS SOT, said that this transparency was necessary to ensure that the district was following the law in its allocation of funds.
“Whenever we ask to see under what measure these funds are being allocated to the schools; or to see how the local budget was determined for us; we get stonewalled every time,” Moses said. “We can’t get that information from the district.”
The result is that the local schools operate in the dark in knowing what funding to expect, Moses said. In the past, outlying rural schools have received an additional allotment of funding for staffing required to keep programs running in the small schools. State law requires that, despite the new per pupil funding ratios being generated in the current CCSD reorganization, rural schools should be kept whole in receiving those additional small school allocations, Moses said.
“We don’t know what our proportional allocation was versus the per pupil spending,” Moses said. “We can’t find it out and when we ask questions we are sent around the bureaucracy and never get a solid answer. So right now, our funding comes without any explanation or justification from CCSD. It is just, ‘Here is what you get, it’s a gift to you.’ We have no idea if it is the right amount or where those numbers even come from.”
Another improvement recommended by SOT members was in finding a remedy to the prevalent perception that retaliation might come to teachers and principals if they express opinions that might be at odds with their superiors at CCSD central.
“There is the feeling that if they express a divergent opinion than the company line that there will be a retaliation for that,” said Lindsey Dalley, a Mack Lyon SOT member. “But principals must be free to at least advocate for the positions that are discussed in their SOT meetings. There needs to be immunity or tolerance extended to them so they don’t get marked for advocating what the community wants.”
On this point, Knudsen asked the group for suggestions on what might be done to overcome this fear of retaliation.
Dalley responded that, in his conversations with Michael Strembitsky, the author of the current CCSD reorganization plan, Strembitsky had been adamant that a major cultural change was needed at the district.
“He said that the true test of a collaborative culture is when someone working down in the trenches can freely offer criticism to his/her superiors in the system,” Dalley said. “Clearly we do not have that in the CCSD right now. So we don’t have a collaborative culture. That cultural change has to happen.”
Another improvement suggested by the SOT members was to loose the bands on the idea of autonomy in the local schools.
“They use the word autonomy and we get excited about having that,” said Mack Lyon SOT member Aimee Houghtalen. “But what we actually get is really nothing new. What little autonomy is given is put into too tight of a box with control from above.”
“We don’t want the district to tell us the extent of what we can and cannot do,” Dalley added. “That is command and control, not autonomy.”
Dalley acknowledged that there might be a range among SOTs throughout the district in how much autonomy each one is prepared to take. But he stated that local teams are ready for, and accustomed to, a higher level of independence.
“There needs to be a process for precincts that are prepared for it to gain greater autonomy when they ask for it,” Dalley said. “There needs to be a mechanism for more autonomy to be dispensed to these teams because right now what is being called autonomy is pretty much the same thing as always. There is not any real authority or power in these SOTs.”
Local SOT members also gave criticism about the method for selecting the teachers who serve on the SOTs. Currently SOT teachers are selected through union channels. Only teachers who are members of the union are eligible for selection. In the local schools, where there is relatively low union membership among the teachers, this narrows the field significantly.
“We are concerned about the selection process for the SOT members being done from afar and not really done with what is best for the individual school in mind; or even a fundamental understanding of the dynamics of the community,” Dalley said.
To close the discussion, Knudsen acknowledged the uniqueness of outlying schools like those of Moapa Valley. But he also observed that many of the same suggestions and concerns being discussed in this meeting were similar to what his team had heard in the eight previous sessions they had held throughout the district.
He encouraged the SOT members to be patient with the process. “When changing a culture, things move very slowly,” he said. “We hope that we can continue to work together in a spirit of collaboration to make things better.”
