My Meeting With Senator Bair

I thought since I said I would provide an update after meeting with Senator Bair, that I better get it done before I forgot a lot of what was said. I didn't take very many notes during our two and a half hour lunch and meeting. So here goes.

My wife and I met with Senator Bair and his wife at Tommy Vaughns. I had my topics for discussion broken down into two main items. The funding issues and my online concerns. I asked him if he had read the article questioning the consitutionality of the way schools are funded. He said that he had. I went over the premise that because poorer schools have to tax at a higher level than rich schools that it wasn't constitutional. First of all he disagreed with that premise. He even quoted a state supreme court case he said confirmed that it was constitutional.

I later found out after my emails I had sent him that he was so nervous to meet with me that he woke up at 4:30 and spent several hours going over things he thought I would ask him. He even printed a copy of the Students Come First Legislation and other documents to back up what he was telling me. The pile of papers he printed are at least an inch thick.

He told me how small schools get a better funding formula than large schools. He said it's because small schools without more help from state funds couldn't afford hiring all the qualified teachers we would need to  teach all the subjects that need taught. He also said that if we were funded the same as the larger schools we would probably reicieve 30% less money than we get now. But I had pointed out the difference in the tax base per student, for example Firth at $226,000 and Blaine County at $4,000,000 and said that it is a whole lot easier to fund levies for the extra funds needed, and how much less of a tax they would need to have than us. He didn't disagree.

He gave me a paper that had all the cuts in the state budget that were made over the last few years. Public education was cut 10.3% far less than many other things had been. The state budget had gone from a high of $3,000,000,000 to a low of last year at $2,250,000,000. He said they would have had to increase the sales tax 2% to make up the difference in the public education budget, and that would have been too big a burden on the state economy. I can appreciate their concern about raising the sales tax that much, but don't overlook the burden and need for schools to then have levies to fund schools. I brought up what Senator Goeddle had said in the article implying that schools should be funded okay and only need levies if they wanted to fund something extra. And how he had said "just throwing money at public schools does not result in better education". He did agree that Senator Goeddle shouldn't have said that. He mentioned how schools have had levies for a long time before this financial problem. I pointed out how that was true, but that levies were used a lot different before. Levies used to be for the extra things beyond normal funding. Things like paying coaches more and offering a lot of extra electives. Now schools use levies to just try and fund schools to maintain basic education.

On this subjet I was trying to make him understand how in the media, and especially from Tom Luna, they make it sound like they have done well with funding schools and make it look like districts just can't live within their means, and ignore the burden levies have on the community.

I then got into my concerns about the online requirements that are being implimented this next year. He is a very strong proponent of this plan, so I had a hard time convincing him any different. But he at least acknowledged my concerns. I tried explaining how it just isn't the same to have a teacher teaching an online class, compared to having a teacher teaching in the classroom. He said there will be many ways to offer online classes that are not all online, or use the system that allows the students to see the teacher and the teacher to see the students. But he did concede that it isn't the same thing.

I asked him about the reduced funding for schools and teachers to fund this program. He didn't seem to think a lot more funds had been dedicated to this, but admitted that some had. I said at least the plan was a lot better than what Mr. Luna first wanted. He wanted at first for there to be a requirement of four classes instead of two. And for there not to be allowed to have a teacher in the room while they students were taking the class, and some other crazy ideas he had. At first he wanted the students to be able to take whatever class the student chose to take, now instead the school has control of what and how the classes are taken.The Senator explained Mr. Luna was a big idea guy, but he had others around him that took his ideas and made them more workable. I talked about how his ideas sure have a way of making people mad at him, and how he seemed to have no problem reducing teachers in schools to pay for this.

I talked about how I was concerned about the average or below average student succeeding taking these classes. He said there was a remediation plan for students that struggle to do somthing different, but I don't know yet what that alternative would be.

I tried expressing my concern about how do we help these kids taking these classes with less staff, and if we were able to provide the help necessary, how does that save money. I can't remember exatly how he answered this. He went into the idea how soon, the plan was for schools to get back to the same teacher funding formula we were at before. He explained that a teacher unit used to be funded at $24,000, but because of the cuts, it was reduced to $20,000 a unit. For us this meant the loss of three teachers last year. During our conversation he talked up all they had done to restore teacher salaries back to the grid, where they actually have hope of getting a raise sometime in the future. But acknowledged how they haven't done anything yet to restore the unit funding. From what I have read most of the surplus funding at least for this next year, if there is any, will go to fund the online program. I haven't read anything other than a very small amount going to discretionary funds. He said it all depends on the economy, but by the next budget they have plans to start restoring the unit funding, so eventually we should be able to hire more teachers.

I asked him about how I thought cheating would be a major concern. He didn't really say this wouldn't happen, but he explained with how the school manages this we should be able to prevent most of it. It will be up to the district for example, to decide if we let the students take the laptops home. The method of the classes offered could help prevent cheating. He also said the computers will have a chip in the hardware not the software, to filter the content they can access or download on the computer, which sounded like a good idea. 

He said they had done piloting of this program in a few schools, I think Sugar Salem was one of them. He also referenced four big Texas school districts that had implimented an online program.

He talked with excitment with how this would be a tool for students to take conncurent college credits, and how this would save a lot of money. The state also plans on paying for the students to take these courses. The students can graduate early and start college with having earned credits for their college degree. He thinks the computers will save schools money for text books. Curriculam is a lot cheaper for a computer than buying a text book.

He did bring up some concerns for me. After the legislative session last year when they presented the pay for performance plan for the schools, we were told we needed to have a plan of how to impliment this plan. Things like how to reward hard working teachers with this money the state will give us if we meet certain state required goals. Because of the short time between finding out about this, and the time the state wanted to know what our plan would be, we were given the option of developing our own plan or going with the state plan, we were advised to go with the state plan so we did. Senator Bair said we should have submitted a detailed plan. In the state plan there is guidlines and suggestions of how to use the money, but no real plan as to axactly how this is to be done. He questioned if we haven't done this correctly, we may not even qualify for the money to be given to the school. I need to find out about this from Mr. Tubbs, but haven't had the chance yet to do so. I was given the impression from Mr. Bair that if we haven't done this right we may already be too late for this years funding. I sure hope this isn't the problem that I am afraid it is.

I also found out we should have submitted a technolgy plan. Detailing how we plan on implimenting the online program and making a request for what our needs will be for computers and the other technology we might need. He said most school districts had submitted their plans. I haven't heard anything about this yet. The administration may be working on it, but it hasn't come to the board. So good or bad, if I understood him right we won't be very high on the list for funding. He did say Snake River decided with the uncertanties with this legislation that it may be overturned by the voters this fall, they voted to not submit a plan until this issue is decided.

There was some other concerns that I need to find out about. But as I try and think of anything else, I believe that pretty much covers my conversation with Senator Bair. He said he would be happy to meet with Mr. Tubbs and talk over issues with him. He said he has never met him, and would like to. I will try and encourage them getting together. I am glad I brought my wife with me and not Mr. Tubbs. My wife had some good imput and I appriciated her support. I think we had a more open conversation, and I learned a lot more than if I had brought Mr. Tubbs. I also think I built a relationship with him. If there are other things that come up in the future, I think he would listen to what I have to say. We talked about a dairy issue that had been put aside. He said when this issue came back up I would be one of the first people he would discuss it with. So in this aspect I think it was well worth my time engaging him in a good debate over school issues.

I was going to write about the cottage meeting in this same blog, but this is very long in itself. As I am finishing, it's after 1:00 in the morning so I am tired and will try and write about the cottage meeting in the next day or two. I am going to have my wife do some editing of this, and since she was there, I will have her remind me it there is something she thinks is important that I may have left out. Thank you, Brian Esplin