HUDAK’S BOARD NOTES – SEPTEMBER 2007

NOTE: The SBE will not meet in September. (The meeting scheduled for September 5-6 is canceled.) The next meeting will be October 3-4. If there is any important business to be done in the interim, we will hold a telephone conference.

Board Retreat (August 29-30, 2007)

• TEAM-BUILDING – Commissioner Jones brought in a special facilitator, Dr. Don McAdams, to help the State Board of Education members with team building. McAdams is a former school board member and an expert on working with boards. He said that the essence of democracy is compromise. He helped us understand the importance of compromising and coming to consensus as much as possible, to improve our public image and to help the Commissioner and the Colorado Department of Education be high-performing. He helped us clarify what our role is as the board – governance – versus the Commissioner and CDE – management.
• SURVEY OF CDE STAFF – Commissioner Jones had brought in a couple of outside consultants in July to survey the CDE staff, in order to get an idea what their concerns, issues, hopes, and ideas for improvement might be. The consultants reported to us that they have never seen a staff with such enthusiasm for working on making changes. They said, "It was unbelievable. The joy that was expressed was amazing." The staff’s enthusiasm was mostly because of the new Commissioner. The staff indicated that they very much want CDE to have a clear mission and vision, to speak with "one voice" to the public, and to "create a purpose-driven and dynamic system of educational leadership service and support that relentlessly focuses on the learning of ALL students."
• COMMISSIONER’S "NEW DAY PROMISE" – Commissioner Jones presented a plan that he and Deputy Commissioners Ken Turner and Karen Stroup created to describe how staff intends to organize toward accomplishing CDE’s and SBE’s strategic plan. The plan has 7 parts: (1) guidance and support services to meet district and school needs; (2) professional development in best practices; (3) tools to eliminate gaps and increase achievement for all students; (4) a seamless, collaborative leadership system; (5) efficient and effective use of federal, state, and private funds; (6) reliable source for research, data, and analysis; and (7) a recognized model for building expanded leadership capacity. [The genius of the plan is in the details! See my website under Meeting Notes for the Retreat, under #3 – CDE RESTRUCTURING.]
• CDE STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS – Commissioner Jones intends to create a unit in CDE led by Kelly Leid as the Associate Commissioner for Strategic Partnerships, for planning to create 21^st century initiatives that integrate innovation, critical industry skills, and 21^st century skills into the standards; to create the "Commissioner’s Cup" which honors districts that are leading dynamic public education; the Commissioner’s – or SBE’s – Summit, an annual 3-day retreat, to engage a variety of education stakeholders, business leaders, etc.; and Colorado Legacy Scholars, a new scholarship fund that awards a full-ride scholarship to 100 of Colorado’s top high school seniors to attend a Colorado university if they agree to teach for a few years. From this work would be created a CDE Best Practices Guide. These would be paid for by privately raised money from the business and nonprofit sectors.
• LEGISLATION – We recently hired lobbyist Anne Barkis to be the Legislative Liaision for CDE and SBE. She will work year-round, keeping the SBE informed of various education meetings, such as the P-20 Council, Capital Development Committee, CLASS Colorado, the Governor’s legislative staff meetings, relevant interim committees, etc. She will represent the SBE at hearings on bills during the legislative session; if she needs to consult with SBE members or have us testify on bills, her first contacts will be Republican Randy DeHoff and Democrat Elaine Berman, who are in the Denver area daily. Barkis said that it is not necessarily a bad thing for SBE members to have different opinions on bills – she can use this to explain to the Legislature the pros and cons of proposed legislation. After only one day on the job, she already produced a report for us on the key education bills that passed during the last session, with an outline of the SBE and CDE responsibilities and deadlines.
• BOARD MEETING AGENDAS – We discussed how we might restructure the agendas of our Board meetings, particularly the Work Sessions, to enable us to have adequate time for discussion, because we are often interrupted by hours of charter school appeal hearings. Commissioner Jones suggested that we hold charter school appeal hearings on a separate day and do so once every other month. Our Work Sessions will then allow us to have SBE members make reports on important information gathered from the various advisory committees we serve as liaisons to and from meetings and conferences we have attended. Also, we will have the opportunity to have CDE staff present to us about what they are working on, so we can be better informed about the work of the department.

Special Board Meeting (August 30, 2007)

• ADVISORY COMMITTEE FOR SCHOOL CAPITAL CONSTRUCTION – As required by Senate Bill 07-41, we appointed the 11 members we are authorized to appoint to the 14-member Advisory Committee for School Capital Construction. The committee’s purpose is to develop facility and safety priorities, execute a priority assessment of the school buildings and facilities in certain school districts, and select projects to recommend to the State Board for approval from the Capital Construction Grant Program. The committee has existed informally within CDE for the past few years, and all the members were willing to be officially appointed.
• FUNDING FROM POWERBALL "SPILLOVER" – We approved projects to be funded for the Capital Construction Grant Program from the "Powerball Spillover" funds. This funding is in addition to the regular allocation for the Capital Construction Expenditures Reserve. The amount of Powerball spillover funding from FY 2006-07 is $8,219,905.

UPCOMING EVENTS

• September 8 – I will be one of the "dignitaries" appearing in the Arvada Harvest Festival Parade, 9 a.m. in Old Town Arvada.
• September 11 – I will be doing part of the training for accountability committees in the Gunnison area, 6 – 9 p.m., presented by CSAN (Colorado State Accountability Network).
• September 29 – Senator Sue Windels and I will hold an EDUCATION CONVERSATION town meeting from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Arvada City Hall, 8101 Ralston Road, Arvada.
• October 3 – SBE Work Session.

• October 4 – SBE Regular Meeting, with hearings on the rules for the Administration of the Exceptional Children’s Educational Act and rules for the Administration of the Summer School Grant Program.
• October 5 – I will be speaking at approximately 11 a.m. at the State World Languages Advisory Council meeting, in the Adams 12 Five Star School District training center.
• October 9 – I will be visiting Foster Elementary School in Arvada with the Jeffco Legislative Forum.
• October 11-13 – NASBE Annual Conference in Philadelphia.