Just the facts...

In response to questions about the facts I presented in the Deseret News and Standard Examiner commentary, I’ve prepared the following. My original statement is in bold italics:

Thanks to some truly outstanding teachers, the Davis School District is one of the top districts in the state and four of the District high schools were listed among Newsweek’s top high schools in the country.

Top district in the state, is based on the fact that DSD has the highest graduation rate of any of the largest 100 districts in the country and four of our high schools are rated among the top in the country (see Newsweek).

However, recent events have provided an important reminder why parents and taxpayers must avoid becoming complacent and the $4.3 million Title I scandal reminds us how easy it is to become complacent when we trust people.

Superintendent Bowles was quoted in the Deseret News (Nov. 23) as saying "Susan Ross apparently signed her own purchase orders that didn't require a higher-level approval, Davis Superintendent Bryan Bowles said. Those purchase orders could be anything less than $3,000. She was the director, and she had a lot of approval (power)," Bowles said. "You trust folks in those positions to do the right thing." In my opinion, he forgot, or never understood, that we only hire people we trust. Internal controls and trust have nothing to do with each other. I would hope that he would fire someone in that position if he didn’t trust them.

Why is the Davis School District fighting parents in an expensive legal battle over their open meeting violations? Why ignore the opinion of the 2nd District Court, the Editorial Boards of all three local daily papers the Davis County Republican Chairman and the Democratic Chairman who have all been critical of the District’s failure to comply with the letter or intent of this law?

The articles in the three daily papers are no longer available online but if you search their archives you will find them. One of several from the Deseret News is reprinted on this blog. The Clipper ran commentaries by the Davis County Republican Chairman and the Democratic Chairman (Clipper Dec. 19). The District asked requested and was granted a continuance this past December, so that their attorney’s Fabian & Clendenin could study the case more. Why hire a very expensive downtown law firm when they already have a well paid attorney on staff (Michele Buess)?

Even though Bountiful High School had 170 empty seats this school year...

See http:DavisParents.org/SY06_Capacity_and_Enrollment-as-of-Aug06.xls

…the District denied seventy of the ninety students requesting a variance to Bountiful High.

Download audio: Dec 5 Board Meeting - 6 Mb

When the Sunset Hollow community petitioned to move out of the portables at Woods Cross High and into the empty classrooms at Bountiful High, why did the District deny this request...

See http://DavisParents.org/Sunset_Hollow_petition.pdf

…in favor of plans to expand Woods Cross and bus students away from the 300 empty seats at Davis High?

On November 7th, Gary Payne, Director of DSD facilities told me that they are planning to turn common areas at Woods Cross High School into class rooms. This years DSD budget shows $9M in renovations at Woods Cross. It is my understanding that much of this amount is for a much over due environmental system.

As for the 300 seats at Davis High, that is based on the following information obtained from the District.

Currently, there are 3 “teacher collaboration” rooms that are used for class rooms which effectively extents the capacity by 75 more students. If these were included, SY09 will have 395 empty seats. Now consider that there are between 250 and 350 students at the LDS seminary building every hour and you realize that I could have reported as high as 740 (390+350) empty seats, but that would have exaggerated my claim a little.

I recently met one family who applied for a variance to Bountiful High so their daughter could attend the same school as her older sister. Unfortunately, the administration believes that variances hurt the resident school and so this variance request and numerous appeals were denied. The family even offered to send their senior from Bountiful to Woods Cross so their children could be together, but the athletic programs wouldn’t allow that to happen.

I asked the family to read the article before I submitted it, just to make sure I had presented the facts accurately.

We applaud the Salt Lake School District for their open enrollment policy. In that district 25% of the high school students choose their school. The Davis School District limits school choice to 2%.

The Salt Lake School District wrote a guest commentary in the Deseret News (Jan. 29) in which they made the following statement:

“Salt Lake City School District supports both universal excellence and public
school choice… Twenty-five percent of our students exercise meaningful choice,
enrolling in schools outside their residence area.”

In comparison, the Davis School District has generously increased the maximum variances from 1.5% to 2%.

In the real world, if a supplier could force their customers to buy only from them, there would be no motivation to improve, or even maintain the quality of the product or service. As a father who will have children in the public school system for another fourteen years, I fear the mediocrity that is sure to follow if our public school administrators have no accountability and patrons have no choice.

This of course is just my perspective based on 20 years in the “real world” and a limited knowledge of the failures of the Russian Socialist system.