Oskaloosa Schools Administration Faces Tough Questions At Eggs & Issues

Eggs & Issues for March 25, 2017.

Oskaloosa, Iowa – Eggs & Issues is a local forum that helps connect residents and constituents with those in leadership around the community.

This week was the final installment of 2017, and the Oskaloosa Schools Board of Education President Tom Richardson and Superintendent Russ Reiter were the two members of the panel that fielded the most questions from those in attendance.

Diane Crookham-Johnson, a parent of a student in the district, asked Reiter about transparency. She was looking for clarification on teachers and school board members being able to openly communicate with each other. Crookham-Johnson said that teachers have responded to board members by stating that they can’t talk to a school board member and that the chain of command in regards to communication has been stressed.

“Can you reassure all of the teachers in the room today that based on our belief that transparency is important that they can talk to school board members whenever they like?” asked Crookham-Johnson.

“I can’t necessarily say yes to the final question,” said Reiter. “I will say, we have a board policy.”

Reiter said that the board policy states “that when teachers have an issue, we ask them first to go to their building principal. When parents have an issue, we ask them first to go to the teacher. Sometimes, when teachers have an issue and they go right over the principal, or myself as a superintendent, or curriculum director, or any other administrator, and they go right to a board member. They’re talking to this board member, they come back to me and they’ll say, did you know this was happening, or what’s going on here. I’m like… I haven’t heard of that.”

“If in fact they go through that chain of command, where they talk to the building principal. They talk to the curriculum director, they talk to me, or we can have an opportunity to sit down and work something out, and at least I know what’s happening, then it goes to the school board member, I have no problem with that,” said Reiter.

Reiter said that he’s had frustrations in the past where a teacher or parent goes directly to a board member, and “then they come back to me, that’s not how any type of system’s supposed to operate. Whether it’s in business or it’s our board of education and community. We like them to go through that chain of command.”

Crookham-Johnson said that the question was about a school board member approaching a teacher. “If you want to use the business model, a prime example would be a board of directors at a business that walk up to an employee of that business and ask how are things going. You would always expect that employee could talk to the board of directors. Why is it that school board members can’t approach teachers and teachers can’t talk to the school board members?”
“I don’t have a problem with board members going in and having casual conversation. Going to a classroom,” said Reiter, who pointed out that Board President Tom Richardson spent Friday in classrooms.

“But, if there are complaints, like I think in any business, in order to solve those complaints, everybody needs to know about them. Sometimes, right or wrong, I’m one of the last ones to find out about it, or about a specific issue, and I would at least like to know what’s happening so we can work out the issue,” added Reiter.

Mary Hersom addressed the contingent of school administration next, where she expressed her commitment to the Oskaloosa School District and its students. “I’ve dedicated myself to go above and beyond for my students and my families.”

“It’s been my belief that our actions speak louder than our words,” added Hersom, who outlined why she believes her actions speak for her commitment.

“But I have seen a change in the culture and morale of our school. A change that has started at the top,” said Hersom.

Hersom said that with the changes to Chapter 20 collective bargaining by the Iowa Legislature “it changed how the superintendent and the board could negotiate with our employees. While many schools around us work together to sign contracts to ensure their school would maintain their staff, and the staff would be secure in their jobs, Superintendent Reiter and our board would not meet with our staff. Our staff tried multiple times in November, December, January, and February to meet. Our staff is worried about what Superintendent Reiter and the board are planning to do. By your actions or your lack of actions, we are losing trust that you want to work together with us as a team for our families.”

“You made a comment that the association had contacted me and started back in November, December, January, have contacted me to start”, said Reiter in his opening comment in response to Hersom. “The entire process by which we negotiate and file those initial letters was very much standard from November and all the way through January. Not much else was different.”

“I can’t say that the union called me once a week and said hey, we want to meet, we want to meet. I’m not going to sit here and belabor all the things you and I are going to differ on how many times I was contacted. I can tell you I was contacted on a Sunday afternoon the week before the Governor was going to sign that bill and hey, can we go ahead and meet,” added Reiter. “How many more times than that, I’d have to go back and check because there weren’t that many.”

“I guess from my position, we all have our positions, we all have our responsibilities. Part of my responsibility is the fiduciary responsibility and the fiscal responsibility to keep the district above water,” said Reiter.

“There’s only so much money…. And when we’re handing out dollars to meet the negotiation obligation, something has to give. In the past, that would have been jobs, that has been teachers. We have lost certified staff through attrition, and we have not hired back. There comes a point that we would love to continue handing out 3 percent, 3.5 percent increases in raise in insurance and salary, but how do we continue to keep the programs we have.”

Reiter said that “decisions we have to make at the top” don’t mean they don’t value the staff, but ensuring the students have “the best programs” is important, and not cutting programs is also important.

Eggs & Issues has ended for the year, but you can view the full hour-long conversation below.

Posted by on Mar 25 2017. Filed under Local News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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