Public Hearing on Grade Configuration

On Sunday May 17th @ 6:00 pm, at Glacial Drumlin, the Ad-Hoc Committee on Grade Configuration will present the remaining options to the public. They will be looking for feedback and input on the various options. Following this meeting they will have one last meeting to review the comments from the public and then make a recommendation to the School Board.

I would encourage everyone to attend this meeting if able, so you can hear the presentation from Mr. Gerlach on behalf of the committee. It would also be beneficial for the committee to hear what the citizens of this district think about the various options remaining.

If you would prefer not to speak during the presentation please forward your comments regarding the options directly to Mr. Gerlach and he will forward them onto the Ad-Hoc Committee.

The link is directly to the Ad-Hoc Committee page on the district website.

End of the Marathon

Well the campaign marathon is over. Thankfully it ended as I had hoped.

Thank you to all of you who put your faith in me and voted me onto the board. I will begin working in earnest on solutions to the issues that are in the best interest of this district.

Congratulations to Lionel Norton and Jessica Ace for winning seats on the board.

Mike Duplayee deserves a HUGE THANK YOU from the residents of this district for his past service.

Thanks again to all who helped and supported my campaign.

Random Thoughts

Hello All,

Sorry for taking so long to update the site. The past month has been a whirlwind for me both personally and professionally. Work has been very hectic do to some tragic events, so that has taken up any free time that I had. Now with the election only 7 days away it has consumed what little time was left.

I have been out on the streets knocking on doors and meeting many people. It has been an eye opening experience to hear the different view points about our schools, the teachers, the administration and the district as a whole. Most opinions are that the district as a whole is in pretty good shape.

I have been encouraging everyone to get out and vote...even if they are not going to vote for me. Voting is such an important process in our society to determine who the decision makers are that it is a shame that the spring elections usually have such low turnouts. Hopefully, you will help me spread the word to vote on April 7th.

This Thursday the Monona PTO is hosting a forum to meet the candidates for school board. The event will be held at the Winnequah Cafeteria at 7:00. Please stop by and here what each of us has to say during our last public appearance before the election.

If anyone has any questions regarding the election please do not hesitate to post a question here or shoot me an e-mail. I will respond as quickly as possible.

VOTE McCUTCHIN ON APRIL 7th (shameless plug)

Endorsement Announcement

I was notified on 3/9 by the candidate review committee that the Monona Grove Education Association will be endorsing my candidacy for the School Board. I appreciate the support of MGEA as I continue this campaign. Additionally, if elected to the school board I look forward to the opportunity to work with MGEA in a partnership for the benefit of the district.

March 3rd Ad Hoc Grade Config. Meeting

This week the Ad Hoc meeting focused on the rubric design that we will be using to score the remaining options. Ideally this rubric would have been designed prior to the elimination of options, but that was not done in this scenario and that is ok. The hard part is that it makes it very easy to try and adapt the rubric scoring and weighting to match a desired scenario. I did not get the feeling that was being done, however some of the discussions did focus on how the scoring would be applied to the remaining options. I think that for the most part Craig and the committee tried to stay away from that thought process, but it is hard to do.

I was late for the meeting due to a work issue, so I missed the 45 minute discussion on transitions. Thankfully, I picked a good meeting to be late for. Some of the other items being discussed are busing, costs, neighborhood schools and programming in addition to 3 or 4 others.
Each of these items will have a scale from 1-5 that we will use to rate how we think they apply to a given scenario.

At the March 17th meeting, yes we are meeting on St. Patrick's Day, we will be making final tweaks to the rubric and then running some of the dismissed options thru the scoring system to show the committee how it works. I excited to see this in action and to use an objective scoring system.

If you have any questions about this process please direct your inquires to me or any other committee member. We can provide you with most of the answers to your questions or can get them most likely.

Lastly, the discussion of when would we be ready to go to the public came up. Based on the conversation it appears that we will be scheduling the public forums for late April or early May. This would allow us time to go thru our process of narrowing the choices for the public forums as well as allow us to discuss the feedback from the forums before we go to the school board with our recommendations.

Just a reminder that no matter what recommendations this committee makes or does not make the ultimate decision is going to be made at the board level. Therefore, once the committee make it's recommendation to the board please contact all board members with your thoughts and concerns. The more district residents that provide feedback at both the forums and directly to the committe and board the better in my opinion.

Feb. 25th Business Services Meeting

This week must have been the week for the marathon school board committee meetings as the Business Services meeting Wednesday did not end until about 9:00. However, we were able to accomplish quite a few things this month.

The primary accomplishment was that we forwarded to the board a recommendation to approve the contract with McKinstry that the committee has been working on with them for the past several months. The total of the contract has not been finalized as on the day of the meeting Mark Scullion was notified that an insulation contractor would be able to perform work on the Taylor Prairie roof to fix the leaking issues. Therefore the recommendation was as stated in the FIM’s, approximately $1.53M, and a not to exceed for Taylor Prairie of $450k.

The reason for the urgency of including Taylor Prairie was so that it could be included in the financing bidding that will begin upon board approval. If the Taylor Prairie work costs exceed the $450k amount or if they cannot result in additional energy efficiency then they will not be included in the final recommendation to the board.

From my personal perspective, my thoughts are that this is a very worthwhile project and contract. I did vote to approve it; however I am leery of paying for anything thru savings. In this scenario, I think the financing will work, but it still makes me nervous.

We were to review an initial budget reduction list, but do to the fact that there were some staff cuts and those individuals had not all been notified that item was tabled until the next meeting. This will also allow the administration team more time to review revenue estimates and the cut list.

Next we reviewed the transportation bids that the district received. After much discussion regarding the bids it was decided to stay with the current bus service configuration. Monona routes will be serviced for the next 5 years by Badger Bussing and the district will continue to operate the routes in Cottage Grove. This option offers the best service and cost benefit for the district at this time.

We reviewed the start and end times for the 2009-10 school year. The changes are that Grade 5 at Glacial Drumlin will have their start time moved back to match the rest of the building. As a result they will be dismissed at 3:00 and the bus riders will have supervision in the building until the rest of the building is dismissed.
The last item of discussion was to review the walk zone for the 5th grade students. The major part of this focused on the Glacial Drumlin impact. Due to the changes in start times if we change the walk zone for the 5th grade it will result in a more uniform policy for the Glacial Drumlin building. Additionally, there is a potential for some additional transportation savings.

The remaining items were tabled due to the late hour of the night. We will meet again on April 1st. Yes April Fools Day.

Feb. 24th Ad Hoc Committee

The Feb. 24th meeting of the Ad Hoc Committee to Study Grade Configuration was a very interesting meeting. The Chair, Craig Gerlach, decided to take a step back and slow down the process. I think this was a very good move and one that was very much needed. Mr. Gerlach reviewed the charge of the committee as directed by the board president, John Kitslaar. He then reviewed a few points on Roberts Rules of Order. So far our meetings have been very informal and will now begin to follow these normal meeting procedures.

Mr. Gerlach also stated that he will begin building for the next meeting, on March 3rd, a criteria scale or scoring rubric to review all options that the committee reviewed. We will be going back and reviewing the options that have been dismissed and those remaining. This will give us an objective scoring system to judge the options.

We also reviewed a document from Mr. Gerlach that looked at the capacity of the 5 middle and elementary schools in slightly different fashion. It looked at the building capacities with a range attached to them. This was calculated by taking the number of sections of a grade times the class size goal for the low end and the number of sections times the class size maximums for the high end. This provides us with the following:

Cottage Grove – 455-525
Glacial Drumlin – 904 – 988
Maywood – 224 – 273
Taylor Prairie – 364 – 424
Winnequah – 483 – 538

This does not take into account the impact on common areas like the gym and cafeteria, but does provide a better idea of what each school can actually hold. Also, it was mentioned by a committee member that Winnequah’s capacity may be higher depending on grade configuration and actual number of rooms needed for specials like special ed., OT/PT, gifted/talented, etc.

Lastly, we held a lengthy discussion regarding which set of population numbers we would use for our analysis as we move forward in this process. The district presently has an applied population study conducted for them by the University of Wisconsin to help them make decisions. The study presents four different models to choose from, the baseline model, the 2 yr. trend, the 5 yr. trend and the kindergarten model. Each of these models has advantages and disadvantages to them. 2 of them are fairly aggressive in Monona and rather passive in Cottage Grove and 2 are exactly the opposite.

At a previous meeting I presented numbers that averaged the 4 models together. My rationale behind doing this was that it would take the advantages and disadvantages of all 4 models and present a more median approach and would not favor one community over the other.

As Mr. Gerlach started this discussion he stated that he recommended the 4 model average, but that he would like to discuss it with the committee. After a lengthy discussion and 3 different motions it was decided that we would use the 5 yr. trend model as our main source of estimation going forward.

On a side note, I will state that I would have preferred the 4 model average because it is the fairest option to both communities in my opinion. With that being said I am thankful that we have made a decision on which set of population estimates we will use. In the end I think one of the committee members said it best, and I am paraphrasing because I cannot remember the exact quote, “No matter which model we choose, we will be wrong.” This is true in my opinion because the applied population is an inexact science and while the estimates are valid they will never be exactly perfect.

The next meeting is set for Tuesday, March 3rd.

Feb. 23rd Athletic Field Use Meeting

This past week has been a whirlwind both personally and professionally, hence the reason for the delay in this post.

I attended the Feb. 23rd meeting of the Athletic Field Use Ad Hoc Committee. As a first time viewer of this committee I found it very interesting and informative. The committee focused mainly on the alternative options for the Soccer teams for both the upcoming seasons and future seasons. Ahuska Park will be a viable option for the short term, but the City of Monona is looking for a long-term tenant for the park and a youth football group may be that tenant. This does not mean that the school district will not use the park, but they may not be given the same priority status as they currently enjoy.

The Village of Cottage Grove Recreation Dept. gave an update on Fireman’s Park and its availability starting for the 2010-11 school year. Fireman’s Park is looking to have a Championship Field in addition to other soccer practice fields at its facility. This may allow the school district the ability to host WIAA State Tournament games, which we cannot host presently. This would be a real nice perk for the soccer teams if it all comes together. Some of this will depend on the ability to raise funds for some of the amenities a Championship Field would require.

The committee also discussed the green space at Glacial Drumlin and its potential future uses. A lot will depend on how the grass comes in this spring as to its availability this year. In future years it will have to be determined exactly how much space is there and how best to lay out that space. There is a potential to use it for both football and soccer.

Lastly, they discussed the High School Track. The track will be patched this spring. After it is patched a determination will be made to either paint the patches or paint the entire track. Additionally it was stated that the track will need to be replaced real soon. Further discussion was held regarding exactly when that would be, but it was stated that the future date would depend on what damage is discovered when the patch repairs begin. It was also discussed if the repairs would be done at the same time as the football field, but nothing definitive has been decided.

2/10/09 Ad-Hoc Committee

Well the Ad-Hoc Committee for Grade Configuration met again last night to discuss the potential options regarding building sizes and grade configuration. We went over various scenarios and had some good discussion on all the potential options. When we started this process we had 20 or 21 different items to review and we are now down under 8.

Various scenarios involve busing of students, adding modular units to schools, keeping status quo, school building consolidation or some combination of these. The committee will again review the various options and the impact of the options on the students, on the buildings and on the district budget in preparation for the next meeting.

The next meeting will be 2/24/09 at the District Office at 6:00. At this meeting we will continue to refine the options and get ready for the PUBLIC FORUMS that will be taking place. A date and time has not been set yet for these public forums. At the public forums the committee will be looking to gather feedback on their list of options. This feedback will help the committee work towards a recommendation to the school board.

A sub-committee was designated to begin putting together a presentation of how the committee has gone from the 20 or 21 options to those that will be presented to the public. It will show the reasoning behind elimination of the various items, whether it was a cost issue or a feasibility issue.

On a personal opinion perspective, this issue boils down to 3 components for me. First, what impact will our decison have on the children of the district with regards to their education opportunities? Second, how will the decision affect the district financially? Lastly, how will the options we recommend to the school board impact the short-term and long-term for the district? Again, this is my general thought process as we discuss the various options.

There is not an easy solution to this issue. The various scenarios all impact each student differently. Some have big educational impacts, some have big financial impacts and others are just not practical. Weeding thru these impacts on the remaining options is where the committee is at presently.

If anyone has any questions about this committee or the various options I STRONGLY urge you to contact a committee member. Many rumors/half-truths/stories or what ever you want to call them are floating around. Some good information has also be disseminated by concerned citizens. However, for the best information contact a committee member. Each one should be able to tell you the same information. Also, I will continue to post the meeting information here and once the public forums are set I will be sure to update this information.

Vision for the Future

The Monona Grove School District is being presented a unique and rare opportunity. With 3 seats open in the April election, the voters have been presented with a chance to voice themselves loud and clear. These open seats, in addition to the recent hiring of the new Superintendent, Craig Gerlach, will shape the future of the school district for the next 3 years and beyond.

This opportunity to change the face of the district is the main reason that I am seeking a seat on the next Monona Grove School Board. I would like to see the next board use this opportunity to become more visionary instead of reactionary. A school board should be a collection of people that are looking at the big picture for the district both short and long term. To that we need to realize how short term decisions will affect long term plans.

This next board needs to develop 3 different sets of goals and plans to achieve these objectives for the district to succeed both presently and in the future. I would like to see a single year, short-term (up to 5 years) and a long-term plan (5-10 years) developed for the district. These goals and plans should be specific, attainable, measureable and relevant to the overall plan for the school district.

The goals need to be set by the board, but in conjunction with the Mr. Gerlach and his administration team. As the individuals that are charged with carrying out the plan they have to also buy into the goals and plans. Additionally, the board needs to do all that it can to provide the tools necessary for the administration to carry out the plans and achieve the goals.

Once goals have been set the board then needs to develop plans on how to achieve these goals and how to measure progress towards achieving the goals. If you cannot measure progress towards achieving the goals then how will anyone know if the goals have been met?

I feel that my experience and knowledge lends itself to putting this type of broad thinking into action. As I have stated a unique opportunity is upon the entire district and to not take advantage of that opportunity would be a disservice to the children of this district.