2015 PSD Board Election Questionnaire

1) As PSD has grown, we have seen school of choice has become limited
at many sites. How do you preserve that choice in a climate that's made
it difficult to support it? We've heard from some parents the district
doesn't advertise the limited availability well enough; there's not
actually choice.

INACCURATE QUESTION! School of choice is not a right. School of choice

is a state mandated privilege when space is available. The question
implies an obligation to preserve when the real obligation is to
members of the school's geographic boundary area.

Given limited resources, the solution is not to preserve. The solution

is to understand why people are leaving certain schools and use the
funding to fix those schools instead of funding the exodus which just
creates a greater exodus.

2) The district has a long-term plan to deal with growth in the

district. However, new schools are years away. How do you deal with that
growth today? Modular units? Later start times?

INACCURATE QUESTION! The district does not have a long-term plan.

It has an unfunded draft plan that it hopes to finalize and fund
next year. https://www.psdschools.org/webfm/8909

There are no good PSD controlled short-term solutions as every dollar

that goes into temporary solutions is a dollar that is taken away from
the classroom. Unfortunately, the best short-term solution is for the
cities and counties we serve to declare building moratoriums, until

we can change the law (at the state level) to require new growth to
pay its own way -- to pay for new school land, buildings, water rights
and increased administrative overhead. Uncontrolled growth not paying
its own way is what got us into this problem. Taking a pause to fix
the problem is the best way out of it.

3) The school district will soon put a bond to the general public to pay
for construction of several new schools and needs at others existing. Does
it go far enough? How will you sell the hundreds of millions of dollars
to those who don't have kids in the system?

INACCURATE QUESTION! PSD is thinking about putting a bond to the

public, the decision has not been made yet. In fact, the draft plan
states "Outside of Bond funding, the district must explore other
funding options to support new school construction."

The people are unlikely to support this bond issue. As it is,

they are facing a 15-20% property tax increase for the third year
in a row. There is only so much money out there and as inflation
outpaces wages, more and more families will need the money for food
and shelter. Further, asking the people to fund the government will
be a hard sell. Over the past few years they have been betrayed
multiple times: The state stole our DDA TIF for another 20 years,
the state stole our negative factor money, the state stole our
TABOR refund, the state is trying to steal the marijuana refund, the
state tried to fund schools with a billion dollar tax increase on
low-income and middle-class that excluded businesses. Cities have
been stealing our funding with TIF (approximately $1.5M per year or
$37.5M over the typical 25 year TIF period), and until this year,
the district's official position was to support TIF as indicated at

http://votemikepruz.pruz.org/news_funding.htm

Given the support from the people of Fort Collins for the City's Climate
Action Plan and rejection of the Colorado Climate Plan, selling the
currently planned dirty buildings will be difficult to impossible,
which is why I'm supporting not only net-zero, but net-positive
construction for all new facilities.

Further, the district is rolling in money. Over the past five years,
reserves are up over 35% and per student funding is up 9.79% which is
on par with the local inflation rate of 9.29%.

The only funding problem PSD has is that growth is not paying its own
way due to choices made by city and state politicians!

https://www.psdschools.org/finance/financial-transparency/district-adopted-budgetuniform-budget-summary
http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

4) What's the top priority/goal for you as you consider taking a seat
on PSD's school board in the 4-year term to come?

Adaptation to the changing world.

The school model was developed when we had a homogeneous society of

working dads and stay-at-home moms. The current model worked well when
mom was able to get the kids off to school, deal with mid-day illness,
after-school, half-days, holidays, and summer vacation.

Our society has become heterogeneous with the addition of a significant

number of two-income families, single parents, grandparents raising

grandchildren, live-ins with unofficial but not legal authority over
the student, others, and even more diversity on the way.

The district must stop trying to fit everyone into last century's one
and only solution. Rather, the district must recognize that the home
environment has changed greatly and make the corresponding changes to
support the community.

5) What does student success look like to you at the conclusion of a

student's senior year in high school?

The Air Force Academy has already handed out rated assignments to its
2016 graduating class with unrated assignments expected by the end of
next month. Most of our college-bound students haven't even completed
their applications yet.

For me success would be for ALL seniors to know what they want to do
after graduation with the confidence that they are making the best
choice currently available and knowing they have options if that choice
doesn't work out.

For all students to feel their school and their peers support and
respect their choice, whether it be military, work force, marriage and
family, trade school, college, independent business owner, or any of
a dozen other choices.

We must also make sure graduates have a better understanding of how our
society works, specifically how to recognize tyranny and oppression,
advocate on their own behalf, and affect positive change in their

communities.

6) What can you do as a board member to evaluate - and improve on the number and time spent on mandatory testing?

As a board member my actions are severely limited by HB 15-1323

which clearly says that the district "may not do anything that would
discourage a student from taking a state assessment or encourage
the student's parent to excuse the student from taking the state
assessment." I will consult with the board's attorney and do the
maximum allowed by law to advocate for MAP (Measures of Academic
Progress) testing which evaluates student knowledge as opposed to
traditional standardized tests which are designed to measure population
performance.

As a candidate, I encourage non-violent direct action such as boycotting

state mandated exams that do not provide immediate and direct results
to students and their teachers, that fail to honor student privacy,
or for which the district has not fully disclosed what data the
third-party will have access to.

MAP testing has a number of advantages: Immediate results for student

and teacher, can be taken in low-stress environments, can be taken
as part of advisory without taking away from core curriculum time,
is accurate under non-standard conditions, can be taken any time,
can be repeated as often as needed, but most importantly MAP testing
is designed to find out what the student knows.

7) What will you do to engage the significant block of the public that
doesn't have kids in school in this election?

This is not the candidate's job, but is the role of the district and
civic organizations. Specifically, the district should do more to
advertise the election (with neutrality) and, like the city, provide
information about all candidates, not just the incumbents on their
election page.

https://www.psdschools.org/board-education/about-us/board-education/2015director-election

8) Should PSD work toward free all-day kindergarten for all?

See question 4 above. This is a symptom of the underlying change

in society that needs to be addressed. We cannot address this issue
independently, but must address it as part of a comprehensive plan to
better meet the needs of the 21st century family.

Specifically, Kindergarten used to be a tool to help children adjust

from spending all day with in an unstructured stay-at-home mom
environment to spending all day in a very structured environment with
their first grade teacher.

Today, most families put their children in day-care where this

adjustment has already occurred.

We need to consider that kindergarten may be obsolete in today's

society and that our community might be better served by fundamental
change in the way K-3 education.

9) Should PSD consider a year-round school calendar?

See question 4 above. This is a symptom of the underlying change

in society that needs to be addressed. We cannot address this issue
independently, but must address it as part of a comprehensive plan to
better meet the needs of the 21st century family.

Specifically, we must not do what other districts have done. We must

not use year round school as a tool to meet district budget needs.
Rather, we must understand the changing society and decide if year-round
school is a tool that supports our community or creates discord.