Six years ago I came onto this Board of Education with certain attitudes that I believe reflected widely held attitudes within the community.  At that time I believed that the public schools were failing and still I dropped my children off at school every day.  I believed that teachers and principals were the Enemy and still I dropped my children off at school every day.  The only thing I knew about administration was the name of the superintendent and still I dropped my children off at school every day.  And I saved the most insulting sentiments for school board members.  The only thing I ever saw school board members do was fight publicly with each other, interfere in coaching choices and generally behave in ways that were not very compelling or smart.  And still I dropped my children off at school every day.

It is now the year 2000, the year of the dragon, the dragon that in Chinese mythology symbolizes authority, courage and good fortune.  Over these years of volunteer service to my community, I have learned on the job about authority, courage and good fortune.  Six years ago I sat down in that chair and I was terrified. I did not know the difference between operational and capital monies.  I did not have a clue how board policies affected classrooms.  I knew little to nothing about salary schedules, special education, ancillary services, title programs, site based management, facilities planning, pupil teacher ratios, charter schools or transportation formulas.  And I definitely did not know that getting extra help for learning to read was somehow tied to the free and reduced lunch count.
 
What I knew very well were many people whose lives were a continuing cycle of poverty, teen pregnancy, violence, prison and death.  To me these were not statistics but real people, way too many real people.  I knew also that the schools seemed like a logical place to try to make a difference.  I knew that I cared and I knew that I was going to step up to the plate and take a swing, terror and all.

I know now that although there has been phenomenal institutional progress in key areas in public education in Santa Fe, the question that has not been answered is how did we get to the point of overspending our budget by 2.6 million dollars and having our financial authority suspended by the State Department of Education.

I can give a million reasons and excuses for what happened.  But not one of those justifies the pain, anger and hardship that has been the result of this financial crisis.  Why did this happen?  I believe it happened because of complacency, trust and ignorance.  As a body we were complacent about what we judged as progress in the business office. As a body we trusted that the information we were receiving was reliable, and as a body we behaved as if ignorant about the extent of the mess.

Along with my colleagues, I sat here and not only faced the pain and anger but made decisions that caused the pain, the anger and also the hardship.  Six years ago I believed horrible things about every level of the public schools and yet in a state of personal complacency, I dropped my children off at school every day.  I did not trust the public schools on basic levels and still I dropped my children off at school every day.  And from my own place of personal ignorance about what I believed schools could provide for my children I dropped them off at school every day.

As a body this Board of Education can beat and berate ourselves for having blown it on the finances or we can act from authority and courage in the clean-up and in on-going support for those areas in which there has already been phenomenal institutional progress.

To illustrate that progress I am going to talk about a couple of big areas.  One is community participation and the second is what I am calling "The Big Pieces."  I am going to do 2 visuals here.  First, I am going to point out these banners and the certificates along the back wall and I am also going to show some slides that illustrate this community's commitment to our public schools in the form of Business and Community Partnerships.

Six years ago, formalized partnerships probably existed but the perspective of the community as represented by the Board was that there were none.  Between 1994 and 1996 as far as I can tell there were three formalized partnerships, CSF, SFCC and SER.  Then, after the appointment of Leslie Carpenter as Director of Business and Community Partnerships, this is what happened.

What this slide shows is that in 96-97 there were 13 formalized Business & Ccommunity Partnerships, in 97-98 there were 234, and in 98-99, last school year, there were 451 formalized Business & Community Partnerships.  As a body this Board supported a structure that provided formalized partnerships between the schools and business and community people.  Lets examine those partnerships represented in this room alone.

They are Santa Fe County, City of Santa Fe, Palace of the Governors, Federal Highway Commission, New Mexico National Guard, Partners In Education, Santa Fe Children’s Museum, St. Vincent Hospital, Wise Men & Women, Los Sabios Mentoring Program, Santa Fe Education & Apprenticeship Network, Chamber of Commerce Education Council, Royal City Radio Control Club, Cooking with Kids, Temple Beth Shalom, Unitarian Universalist Congregation, Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, Business Advisory Council, Santa Fe Association of Realtors, Coca Cola, Ortiz Printing/SF Team Sales, IBM, Xerox Corporation, Computer Partners, Wild Oats Community Markets, Alfalfa’s, Tomasita’s, Jackalope, Sunsilk Landscaping, Borders Books, Office Max, Statnekoy Internet Consulting, and The Santa Fe New Mexican.  These slides, banners and certificates represent only 32 of the total 451.  The other 419 formalized Partnerships are in the schools.  What I am holding up here is a listing of those partnerships by school.  For anyone who wants to take a look at this list we have some copies available or you can get a copy from Krisha Leyba in the Board office.  These partnerships demonstrate system wide support for community involvement in the public schools.

Another example of community involvement is through the SF Board of Education's Silver Zia Awards.  These awards are given to organizations and individuals recognized by Board Members as exemplary in the area of partnering with schools.  The first awards were presented to: The Theater Residency Project under the direction of Cookie Jordan, Linda Borrego, Charlie Maxwell, Robert Weil and Rick Anaya.

I must also mention a partnership that is very special to me personally.  NITI, the National Indian Telecommunications Institute is my employer.  The President and CEO of NITI is Karen Buller who many of you know from her days as an active parent.   NITI trains teachers in reservation, public, BIA and private schools serving Native American students nationwide in the area of technology.  NITI also lobbys in Washington, DC and provide technology education and training at Native American conferences nationwide.  Because of my job at NITI, I bring technology expertise to the Santa Fe Board of Education.  NITIs support for the SF public schools occurs in the form of providing me with a completely flexible schedule.  And that is not all.  NITI Business Manager Robert Bradbury serves as the chair of the SFPS Audit Committee and as a member of the Food Service Task Force.  Thank you Karen, Bob and all the staff at NITI.

The second big piece that I want to point out is illustrated in these next slides which I call "The Big Pieces."  As a body, Board of Education support for the Facilities Master Planning Process is unshakeable.   The Facilities Master Planning Process includes plans and a process for maintenance and upkeep for existing school buildings along with plans for building new schools.  A very significant part of the Plan is that if all goes according to plan, bond and mill levy elections over the next 7 to 10 years will be renewals of existing taxes and not increased taxes for property owners.  The Plan also gives school communities (parents, teachers, principals) a voice in all school building maintenance, repair and new construction plans and decisions.  The Plan also prioritizes expenditures by putting the most pressing health and safety needs first.  And the entire plan was built and is being sustained with the involvement of active volunteer citizens through the Citizens Review Committee.

Six years ago, the visionary concept of Interest Based Bargaining was in its infancy.  Interest Based Bargaining (IBB) is a collective bargaining structure based on what is in the best interest of the whole not what is in the best interest of only one or two constituencies.  Traditional adversarial bargaining assumes that the employees are the enemy.  IBB or collaborative bargaining assumes that everyone has a place at the table.  The 97-98 IBB process resulted in an agreement at the bargaining table that the lowest paid employees would receive the greatest increase in salaries. IBB is a concept that is fully supported by this Board.

Six years ago, the Executive Leadership Council for Youth and Education (ELC) was barely a blip on the radar screen. The ELC consists of the following nine organizations: The Santa Fe Public Schools, United Way of Santa Fe County, City of Santa Fe, Santa Fe County, Santa Fe Community College, St Vincent Hospital, IBM, Presbyterian Medical Services and Public Service Company of NM all working together on the Community Schools Initiative.  This Initiative is aimed at making each and every one of our schools centers of our community. The ELCs Community Schools Initiative will provide a structure that is mutually supportive of the needs, wants, and wishes of the community and the schools. I feel optimistic when I see these players at the table all talking about schools as centers of community.

As a body, the Board of Education has supported the on-going Legislative Task Force.  This is a group of 20 revolving members who have worked systematically at the legislature for 5 years on the issues listed on this slide.  The Statewide Issues we have been working on are A. Increased Funding for Education which, of course, includes money for increasing all employee salaries and we are also pursuing a cost-of living adjustment to the funding formula, B. We are also lobbying for a review of the law that determines  special education funding based on prior year numbers and C. We are lobbying for Full-Day Kindergarten.  Specific SFPS Legislative issues are: A. Money for expanded Summer School Programs, B. Money for Technology and C. Money for expanding our Safe Schools Programs.  Again, the Board of Education has supported a forum for employees and community people to work systematically on legislative issues.

I think this is an appropriate place to speak to the issue of teacher compensation.  Experienced teachers with a masters degree make $32,000 a year less than people in other fields with the same level of education.  If we really want to improve public education we must remedy the issue of teacher compensation.  This issue will take a massive, public and collective protest in order for this nation to act to fill this gaping chasm.

The SFPS Legislative Task Force has evolved into a permanent committee so that these massive issues can be pursued year-around locally, statewide and nationally.  I invite you participation.

Six years ago the Board of Education had, for the first time, just facilitated genuine community participation in the selection of a Superintendent.  In 1996 we participated a second time in a process for selecting a superintendent.  And when I say “We” I refer to 60 people from all parts of this community who sat on 2 different, very grueling, 6 month long, Superintendent Search Committees.  And I say it was genuine participation for the first time, because we have all heard the stories of people who sat on selection committees and then had their recommendations be ignored by the Board of Education.

This Board has worked consistently to provide structures that support community participation in all our public schools.  And this community has stepped up to the plate and participated in large number and for a long time.

I also want to talk about how the Board supports Instruction. On this one, I do not pretend to be an educator yet I am proud of the Boards work supporting the items on this slide. I have been not only convinced but inspired by 3 different superintendents and one interim superintendent in the area of instruction.  Six years ago, SFPS did not have a Curriculum and Instruction framework. I came to understand the significance of the Curriculum framework and of the Educational Plan for Student Success (EPSS) back in 1995.  In preparation for building the Curriculum framework, SFPS teachers, principals, counselors, aids and administrators trained together for 2 weeks at the Kovalick Institute in Texas.  They then worked together at BF Young for another month or longer to draft the first part of the curriculum framework. The process of building the Curriculum framework has been repeatedly referred to by involved teachers as one that allowed for the most professional dialogue of their careers.

In my own education about Instruction, I had to first make peace with the whole idea of standards.  I had to ask “now whose standards are we using here?"  Well it turns out that raising standards is not something I would argue with.  In explaining standards I am going to paraphrase the words of Secretary Riley of the US Department of Education.  Raising standards is making sure that every child is reading well by the end of the third grade if not earlier … Raising standards is making sure every high school is offering Advanced Placement classes and the arts. Raising standards is increasing the number of schools that offer foreign languages so that all our children can speak English and have a fluency in at least one other language.
I also agree with Secretary Riley when he says that we do the greatest injustice to poor children if we allow low expectations to prevail.  I also know now that the move to raise standards is poorly understood and like all else in this complex institution we must be patient not to blame schools for not doing enough; and not to shame students, teachers and parents for what appears to be lack of progress.

The other piece mentioned here is the accountability framework.  This part means that schools are selected to receive assistance based on performance.  The schools undergo an independent curriculum audit and then each school develops a plan for improving student achievement.  The SFPS accountability framework exceeds the State’s requirements for accountability.

I know now what I did not know six years ago, that teachers, principals, administrators, all educators do know how to instruct children.  So even as we worked systematically on all the other big pieces I have already mentioned, the educators with the support of the Board continued to work on improving student achievement.  Superintendent Garcia and the Board plan to host community conversations about instruction so that more community people will be able to see and be inspired and supportive about the positive direction of instruction in this District.  And please understand that this slide is a very rudimentary representation of what is happening in Instruction in this District.

This address will not be complete without some mention of the threat of privatizing what is a public service.  For those of you who are sitting on the fence on vouchers, I ask you to consider what happened to the health care system when it became not health care but managed care.  It is now more complicated, more cumbersome, pharmaceuticals are drastically more expensive and the choice of doctors and procedures that are covered is more limited.

And also look at what happened to the Prisons that have been privatized.  There has been no improvement in the financial picture of the Corrections Department in New Mexico.  In fact the Corrections Department has just this year gone to the legislature requesting a massive increase in funds so they can build yet another prison, a super-max prison.  Whose children are going to serve time in that  prison?  There has also just been an agreement involving the Corrections Department, Santa Fe County and the private Cornell Corrections Corporation.  This agreement will result in leasing to Cornell the old prison where the riot happened and that facility will be reopened instead of torn down.  Immigrants convicted of crimes will serve time at this prison before they are deported.  The United States just this past month passed China, as the country that has the most people in prison per capita.  We all know that the number of beds needed for prisons can be predicted accurately by the number of 3rd graders who cannot read.  The insidious path for more and more of our young people into prison is paved in part by privatized education, by vouchers.  Do not kid yourselves that privatized education will result in better outcomes for the masses.

Further, I truly believe that School Board members represent the will of the community and my view of the will of this community includes the next 2 Projects.  The first project is the plan to build a constructed wetlands as part of the redesigned SFHS.  A constructed wetlands speaks to education reform in the design and use of our school facilities. A constructed wetlands can process grey and black waste water and can also serve as an outdoor classroom. Wise water use is a fundamental educational issue for our times.  I believe it is the collective consciousness of this community that our institutions must be smarter about how we use water. I am committed to building a constructed wetlands that will support teaching and learning at SFHS.  This project must be driven by community will and not by the school system.  The school system knows all too well that good ideas not properly supported and then dumped in the lap of public education are doomed to fail.

One of the numerous resources we have in Santa Fe is the Southwest Wetlands Group which has designed and built over 350 wetlands in this country and Mexico.  SW Wetlands has offered to donate the design for the SFHS constructed wetlands.  I am inviting interested community people to participate in a community conversation about this topic on Monday March 20 here at the board room from 7 to 9 P.M.

The second piece that is near and dear to the hearts of untold numbers of people in this town is Food Service.  SFPS Food Service Department is run by a certified Food Service Director, we have a Food Service Task Force, we have an organization called Cooking with Kids that provides a model for integrating food service with the curriculum in classrooms and we have a community wide consciousness about healthy food that includes 4 health food markets, an exemplary farmers market, world class restaurants and a thriving alternative health industry.
 
Many children today are growing up without having the experience of the kitchen as the center of the home.  In Santa Fe we have the resources to make institutional food more acceptable.  Many of the solutions lie in training and some of the answers involve figuring out how to get more locally grown foods included in the schools food purchasing system.  We have an existing Food Service Task Force and I invite volunteers to assist in figuring out how to improve food service for all our children.

This address would not be complete without some discussion of the PwC Management Analysis which I believe is a valuable tool for assisting in reshaping how this district is managed.  I keep reminding myself that we have the good fortune to live in Santa Fe because in many other communities in this country the money to pay for a management analysis just would not have been there.  As you can see from the slide, the analysis deals with only 5 major areas of management. The report does not touch instruction and there is nothing on transportation or food.  I really like the 250 page report itself and I carry it around with me because just by holding this book up I can give people a sense of how complex this institution really is. In terms of the PwC analysis, I think we would all prefer some kind of instantaneous fix but the reality will be very different.

What will happen is some type of a Management Analysis Implementation process. I am telling you now that working on the implementation will take 30 of you (which may dwindle to 15) putting in 1 to 5 volunteer years on a joint community/schools implementation body.  Superintendent Garcia, VP Ochoa and I along with Owen Lopez and other key community people are currently developing the implementation process.  Again, community involvement for a long time is the key not only to the implementation of the recommendations in this report but to the reform and reshaping of public education in Santa Fe.

The financial crisis, although painful, has provided a tremendous opportunity for this community.  Before the crisis, the Board, administration, school building staff and involved community worked as hard as we could to address the myriad issues involved in public education in Santa Fe.  The crisis brought out new people who had not been involved before.  There is now an Interest Based Bargaining Newsletter that shows much more participation across all levels of school district employees and the newsletter will help keep employees informed so they do not feel shut out of the process.  Members of St. Bede's Church are now volunteering at Ortiz Middle School and they say the experience has changed their congregation.  Gregg Robinson who was already an active parent and community member called me to express his extreme dismay at the financial situation and then asked if there was anything positive he could work on.  He is now involved in the SFHS wetlands project.  Gary Hinte and Carol Samuels from the Unitarian Congregation and Claudette Sutton from Tumbleweeds came to our first Board retreat after the state takeover and they have all three been invaluable contributors at their local schools and district wide.  Also the PwC Management Analysis will be examined by the State Board of Education to determine how it can be used to help fix things statewide.  The State Audit will hopefully assist in adjusting the financial interface between all school districts and the state oversight agencies.  The Grand Jury will finally put to rest the lingering question of criminal wrongdoing.  Every cloud has a silver lining and yes this is a cloud and the silver lining to me is very clear.

I urge that if you take nothing else from this address, please recognize the moment that this community shares.  Our protest over the Santa Fe Public Schools is a collective and public matter.  Also recognize that we have vast resources available to us right here in our town.  This is not a community way out in the wild west.  This is Santa Fe.  I recognize my own good fortune to live in this community and to be on this Board of Education.  One of the great things about being on the school board is that with enough effort and open mindedness, you really can see the possibilities for greatness.  And with enough experience you really can see what it is that must be supported to continue the drive toward educational success for all our children.

I for one will no longer take the attitude "we can't, they won't, it will never happen, we're too poor, nobody cares, nobody listens, I don’t trust them" or any number of other attitudes that are aimed at failing not at succeeding.  One of the great leaders of our times Eleanor Roosevelt said “the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”  I believe in the beauty of my dream and my dream says that when we come together as a community, we can reform, reshape, revision, revitalize our public schools so that all our children can be guided to discover the wonder of learning in an atmosphere that is loving and supportive not only of our children but of our entire community.  I invite you to share in that dream.  Thank you for your time and your attention but most of all thank you, each and every one of you for your commitment to all our children.