Welcome to Kent Clawson's web page

(KENT's DISCLAIMER: The views contained on this site are strictly my own and should not be taken as a reflection of the Board or their positions. Additionally my comments should not be interpreted as Board guidance.)

Site Update: March 28, 2009

I have been out of town a couple of days enjoying some Spring Break with the kids, so I apologize that I have not checked this site for a couple of days. I still have not been able to figure out the failure of the comments to show up, so below, I will be posting the 2 that were posted since the last time I updated.

Before I do that there are 2 updates to previous blog posts that I want to make you aware of. The first is the deletion of a comment and my response that was added after the Gazette article ran last Sunday. This comment primarily requested that all parties involved refrain from comments related to children of opposing parties. It was felt and I agree that this was not acceptable, productive, or necessary. I also sent this person an email with my apology and response. After this I was then requested to remove the whole thread as it seemed to add further light in an area where we both felt darkness was a desired outcome.

The second update that I want to identify is a request from Jackie Vialpando, indicating her role in suggesting that new hires be included in the Board packet that is available for public review. She also asked that I recognize that Tammy Harold was the person who requested that the check register be included in the public Board Packet as well. I have included their names in that entry on the March 21st Entry (http://kentclawson.com/node/25)

I have added the "Recent Comments" Section so that folks can see the comment titles (and so that I know when I need to dig into the database to find their actual comments). Below are the 2 that have been posted since I last checked and I apologize for the delay.

Best wishes,

Kent

Tuesday March 17th, 6:07pm

Subject: You act so bold! (Comment to February 9, 2008 Regarding Concerns with the Superintendent Search??? [It may not have been noticed that this was a posted related to last years search, but I am pretty sure the comment is related to our current situation])

Message: Kent, why don't you just admit that the Superintendent position was already given to the worst person, Eric Paugh. I was not the one who made the prior comments, but I believe that person is correct. Why would the Board settle for someone will very little management skills and knowledge to run the "Fastest growing district?" Bad decision, Kent! You will have a mob on your hands when the public finds out what a lot of people already know!

My response (refer to the disclaimer above).

This statement is rather ironic given the support that the Board has had for Mr. Paugh and Mr. Weishaar, but that is the joy of individuality.

Tuesday March 17th, 6:09pm

Subject: LIAR!(Comment to March 23rd Update)

Message: Picking only the comments you want to answer vs. the comments you should be answering!

My response (refer to the disclaimer above).

Obviously I can't win this wit of logical gymnastics, since the commenter doesn't trust me anyway. If I say the statement is untrue then they don't trust the answer any way. Feel free to post the comments that you think I "should be answering" and I will do my best to answer the concern.

Hope this helps (whether you believe me or not ;-)

Site Update: March 23, 2009

Earlier Sunday evening a comment was posted to the Community Forum and for some reason though the title showed up on the forum tracking the original post does not. It still exists and I can access the information, but at this point I can not get it to show. Until I can get the other matter squared away, and not wanting "to appear to be hiding something" I have decided to post those comments on the front page until I can straighten out the problem.

Thanks

Kent

Updated March 21, 2009

Greetings all,

First of all I want to apologize for not finishing responding to everyone's email messages, but I hope to get to it today. I want to reiterate my support for the appreciation for all that have contacted me regarding the events of this week, both positive and otherwise.

I also want to express my support to the administration on account of the initial decision and the current position related to the principals. The events of last Tuesday were not unexpected, except for the scope.

In these matters it is always difficult to discern where the line for employment law is and where it is not. The respective parties are able to discuss anything they want, but we are bound in what we can and can not say. I know that this is frustrating to many community members, but I think if we put it in terms of what we would want our own employers to be able to divulge then it becomes a little easier to understand, if not any more palatable. My practice has often been to remain as far from that line as possible in efforts to protect all parties involved.

That said I will try and relay some of my concerns from the perspective of a community member (which is what I am when I am not serving with 2 other Board members). I find it concerning that in all the outrage and action that we taken on Tuesday nobody stopped to look at the status of the respective schools and instead chose to focus on the "great people" involved. I have never doubted the scope or the influence that our building administrators have and their ability to generate love and appreciation from those they serve. Unfortunately I have seen declining scores over the last couple of years and that concerns me.

Recently when administrative personnel were explaining the current financial position of the school District, the meeting was allowed to dissolve into accusations and attacks about the administrative personnel and others while the building leadership stood by and let it happen. That concerns me.

In the same meeting as the topic transformed from budgets to building focus some teachers indicated that they will not work to make the incoming International Baccalaureate (IB) a success and will in fact work against it. This is a program that has raised one of our lowest performing elementary schools to the top of the heap. This is a program that allows its graduates to go into colleges in Colorado and throughout the world as sophomores. This is a program that the District is investing 10's of thousands of dollars and to hear that the building personnel are not only not on board but are working against it is concerns me.

If the trade off must be between accountability and popularity, I will choose accountability.

Many have asked about the meeting that is taking place regarding many of the concerned citizens in the area. I want to lend my support to such activities. I hope that many great items for growth come out of it. I am not afraid of citizens getting together to discuss their frustrations and concerns. I must admit that I do find it interesting, but not surprising, that the person who has told me on 3 different occasions over my 18 months on the Board that "people are talking recall of the Board" is the one positioning himself has solely a concerned citizen "with no ax to grind". While I could easily make the case that these are the tactics of a bully, I will instead focus on the fact that I believe he is truly concerned with the District and what he perceives to be the problem. As it relates to recall, I state for the record that I will not be bullied by those accusations. In the end that is how the system is set up and I am grateful for it. Because if I am really that out of touch with the constituents that I serve then there needs to be accountability and I do not fear it. Either my ideas are validated, or I get my time with my family back. Very Covey if I am being asked.

That said I do hope that if it comes to these actions that we can wait until the general election in November to save the money that it would take to accomplish such action, but I also understand if those that are concerned can not wait that long.

Finally, I want to address the statement that has been thrown about by the executive director of the American Association of School Administrators, Mr. Daniel Domenech. Recognize that the real surprise to his statement would have been if he had suggested that cutting School Administrators was a good choice. Recently the State of Colorado indicated that because of the current financial circumstance the state finds itself in, they intend to TAKE BACK $37/ student from operating revenues. In D-49 that equates to $600,000 from the current year's budget (a budget year that is 75% complete). Other District have chosen to take different actions as they plan next year's budgets. Harrison is laying off 80 people (40 of them teachers). Peyton is discussing closing a middle school. Douglas County has told all 1st, 2nd, and 3rd year teachers that they will not be renewed. At this point we have not increased class size, we have not reduced supplies, nor have we done anything that the students should see directly. These actions obviously result in certain losses of efficiency, but it is difficult to keep an administrator when some salaries keep 2-3 teachers in the classroom. Is this penny wise and pound foolish? Maybe, but right now I am concerned about the pennies.

On another note in efforts to make the District more "transparent" in the near future the hires and transfers that the the Board approves will be available in the posted meeting minutes. Until recently I thought that this would be one of those things that I can not legally do, especially when I think of the paper that I need to sign for my bank to make sure that I work where I do and make what I make. Fortunately we had someone point out that since it is public funds, that there is more leniency. I wish that I could say that I was smart enough to come up with this, but it was a community member who asked. Similar to the decision to place the District check register online. These are great opportunities when the members of our community talk with us rather than about us.

Unfortunately this is the second post that I have crafted, but my son "fixed" my first one so I hope that this one is as useful as it seemed that first one would have been. If there are questions that I can answer I would love to do so.

Please feel free to contact me and I will do what I can.

Thanks

Kent

Updated March 4, 2009
Greetings all,
I assume that you are finding this site because of the actions that the D-49 Board took on March 4th 2009 to remove Grant Schmidt as our Superintendent. Otherwise it has been a while since I posted and I am sorry that it is not under better conditions. We find ourselves in a situation that seems eerily familiar. That said, the actions taken today were necessary and I am only sorry that we didn't resolve it quicker.

I feel it necessary to reiterate the above disclaimer as the information contained in this message is strictly my perspective and may or may not represent the position of other Board Members.

When our now departing superintendent was hired in April 2008, we had great hopes that he could provide the leadership that our District deserved. When we hired Mr. Schmidt I felt that he had a number of strong qualities not the least of which was his willingness to develop open lines of communication. This is a quality that was desperately desired by many in the community, and I believe this is a trait that will still need to be cultivated moving forward.

Unfortunately as time went on we started to see disturbing trends that resulted in the need in late January to place him on Administrative Leave. Oddly enough, the experience that has received so much buzz and excitement related to the event held at the Broadmoor was a poor choice on his part, but merely a small piece in an extensive puzzle.

It seems to me that the Superintendent did not show the fiscal restraint necessary to keep his budgets in line and required other programs to suffer as a result of these actions. At various points efforts were made to correct these actions including a resolution related to expenditures being brought forward by Director Shook in a November 2008 meeting. This of course brought the usual charges of micromanagment and Board meddling, but statutorily we as Board members are the ones responsible for the District expenditures and it is a stewardship that is taken seriously.

Sadly the Superintendent had an inability to accept responsibility for his actions, even going so far as to indicate reprimand of a subordinate for inviting assistant principals to the leadership retreat at the Broadmoor. Though the statement did not name the individual, many read between the lines to identify the alleged offender. There never was a letter of reprimand, and worse yet, for Mr. Schmidt’s position, this individual maintained correspondence that not only shows that Grant dictated which individuals were to attend but that he insisted upon the Assistant Principals attendance as well. The saddest part of the whole Broadmoor experience is that all that was needed was an admission that it was potentially poor judgment. A number of Board members were defending it in exactly this vein, but when Grant was asked he continued to obfuscate and change the story.

Integrity is critical in this position, and a failure in this regard is not acceptable. I don’t care if people make mistakes. Risk will always bring a potential for such outcomes, the question is how do you respond in the face of failure. It would appear that as Open Records requests were submitted to such accounts that our Superintendent tried to cover overages in certain funds by forcing the transfer of funds from other accounts. Obviously these unplanned expenses result in impacts to the respective departments.

Additionally I find it interesting that the wife of the Superintendent and the Chief Operating Officer were both able to easily find positions within the District, particularly given the specialized skill set required of one of these positions. I also find it interesting that salary limits that have been long established, seem to have been irrelevant when the former Superintendent hired new personnel (including one of the above mentioned people).

As was originally writing this more for therapy than anything, but now that Mr. Schmidt has issued a press release I will post this along with responses and rebuttals to the press release (see below, my comments are in brackets).

Thanks for your continued support and kindness.

Kent Clawson

Schmidt issued this statement to NEWSCHANNEL 13:
Regrettably, I have reached (an) agreement with the Falcon School District 49 board of education to end my employment. The agreement shows no wrongdoing, but rather a mutual understanding to part ways. My response to the allegations presented to me by the board remains strong that they are
inaccurate.
[if so release them for the public to review along with your response]

Since arriving I have worked closely with key staff to better align resources
[Yet he required all personnel to take Cognitive Coaching training despite the fact that many of our staff already are qualified to teach the course themselves, while students learned upper level math without the aid of calculators.],

create needed operating procedures, and begin to move the district forward in order to become more competitive [motion similar to that of an escalator since all that he has done is accept credit for other peoples efforts and work that was already underway].

Evidence of my impact is found in my First 100 Days document and progress on my Performance Measures. [again much of which was already underway prior to his arrival]
Parents and community must be more involved by asking more
questions around district transparency, holding leadership and board members accountable [and I thought that there was not a thing that we would agree on. D-49 is now one of only 3 Districts in the State that has their check register online for public viewing http://www.d49.org/DISTRICT/Pages/Budget.aspx ],
and require the board to act as a true policy governance group [read rubber stamp the Superintendent's decisions. sorry won't happen].

One example of how the public can become more involved is to attend the March board meeting to hear the results of the Phi Delta Kappa audit of the school district which will demonstrate the district's performance in various
areas, including that of the BOE. [Please do. The meetings start at 6:30pm at 10850 East Woodmen Road]

Upon my departure the district is in good financial condition with a healthy fund balance [In fact true. After programmatic cuts have been made to various departments and Central Office personnel]
well above the state requirement [as per Board of Education policy].

I thank the many supportive staff members for their dedicated work for our students. I wish all the best for Falcon School District 49.

Remember to check out the "Response to Questions" section to review my responses to emails that I have received. I feel that this section is distinct from the FAQ section, in that original E-mails tend to be more difficult to categorize into a specific question or line of questioning.

As usual thanks for this opportunity to serve the school District. Your input continues to be a valuable asset, so please contact me if you have any questions, comments, or concerns ( kent@kentclawson.comkent@kentclawson.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , 650-1257).

Thanks,

Kent Clawson

D-49 Board of Education