On Tuesday evening, the Project for Deeper Understanding held a debate about the proposed Park City School District Bond. Here are some thoughts from the evening:

• Dr John Hanrahan did a great job of moderating the debate. He asked good questions. One of the hardest parts of moderating session like this is asking pointed questions that will be answered by parties on both sides. He did a good job of phrasing questions so they could be answered by all participants.
• I was a little surprised by the makeup of the crowd, as it was much older than I expected. If the average age of those who turnout for the election matches what we saw at the debate, the pro-bond people may be in trouble.
• I’m not sure if the Project for Deeper Understanding changed the debate format due to concerns over there being 4 people for the bond (2 school board members plus two citizens) vs 2 people opposed to the bond, but I think the way it turned out worked well. The way they structured it was to have the school board provide opening remarks and then sit in the audience. Then the debate was “2 on 2.” This was much better than allowing the board members to answer every question (in my opinion). If the board members would have been onstage to answer questions, it would have given the pro-bond folks a decided advantage.
• Former school board member Moe Hickey did a great job of presenting the pro-bond side. You can agree with Mr Hickey, or not, but his experience is evident. When he said that his opinion was that the 5/6 school should be built at the school district’s Bear Hollow site (but the consensus was that it should be at Ecker Hill), it lended even more credibility to his arguments. No dig against the current school board members but I think they are going to miss his presence on the board for the foreseeable future.
• The anti-bond group chose a good tactical route when they said they weren’t against a bond (or paying for schools), they were just against this plan. That enabled them to attack specific aspects of the plan and not appear like they were against schools, teachers, or children.
• The pro-bond group missed a good opportunity to counter criticism about the athletic portion of the bond, and strengthen their argument when a member of the public stated that she cared about education and wondered what parts of the bond were targeted at education. Mr Hickey directed everyone to write the state legislature about more funding for schools. Ms. Hoggan quickly said that all day Kindergarten would help get challenged kids on track faster and then spent 90% of her time speaking about the Park City Educational Foundation. It was a missed opportunity.
• The pro-bond group did a good job of pointing out that what some people want, two middle schools (one on each side of the area), could cost twice as much to build, and would lead an increased number of employees and thus even additional cost.
• Ms. Ziesler did a good job of coming back to the argument of “real world aspects” of this plan. She spoke about the problems of having 1700 5th-8th graders at Ecker Hill, the extra traffic in the area from before/after school activities, and requiring young children to leave their neighborhoods.
• Ms. Hoggan brought up a good point that the community still has the opportunity to contribute to this plan because it is not in stone and there are many design teams that will touch almost every aspect of the plan.
• It was interesting that all questions during the hour allotted to public comment/questions appeared to be against the bond. There was no one that stood up and said, “I like this plan.” Perhaps that is to be expected in this sort of environment but I was a little surprised. Even during the Ski Link Project for Deeper Understanding debate there were a few people in favor of Ski Link.
• One member of the public was very confrontational and aggressive toward Mr. Hickey with his questions. Mr Hickey did an admirable job of keeping his cool and genuinely tried to answer the gentleman’s questions.
• The pro-bond group answered a question about the field house costing $12 million. They corrected the person asking the question and said the field house was only about $5-$6 million of the $12 million in athletic upgrades. That’s interesting because I remember being in a Master Planning Committee meeting and a committee member asked VCBO, the planning company, about the costs of a field house. I believe they said for $5 million you get a pre fabricated metal barn and that we’d likely need to spend at least $11 million to get a very basic building that would look OK on Kearns. I sure hope that if they are going to build a field house that both costs are being estimated correctly and they have allocated enough money.
• Ms Ziesler made a good point that the high school was already designed for expansion, and could accommodate 20,000 additional square feet of space, which would be enough to house the addition of the 9th graders. She pointed out this would be $4 million versus the $25 million remodel planned.
• A citizen asked a “gotcha” question of Mr Hickey. The citizen said that VCBO (the planners) had said that to pass a bond, there needed to be an athletic component. Mr. Hickey did a good job of handling that and said VCBO would likely say something like that and that athletics had been part of the discussions for a long time. Instead of shying away from the argument, he met it head on and rebutted it nicely.
• There was a moment during the evening that felt a little “dirty.” A citizen stated that he hoped the school board would hire a good construction manager to oversee the project so we didn’t have cost overruns like we did during the last high school remodel. The moderator directed the question to School Board member Phil Kaplan and asked, “Have there been discussions about a construction manager?” Mr Kaplan responded that they were in the process of hiring a construction manager. Mr Cronley retorted that the board was already seeing cost overruns so they were resorting to using a person from the school district that may not have the requisite experience. The moderator then asked Phil Kaplan, “Is that true Phil?” Mr Kaplan responded that it is correct that they were looking at hiring a person who is currently on staff but that does have experience. Wile I suppose Mr Kaplan’s answer is true, it doesn’t capture the reality of the circumstances. The School Board appears to want to promote a facilities manager who has construction experience and then hire a contractor to assist the facilities manager with things like estimating costs. This bears watching.

If you have a few minutes, I would encourage you to read the live blog from the debate. It can provide a lot more detail about everyone’s arguments, and if you are still undecided about how to vote, you may find some clarity there.

In today’s Park Record, citizen Peter Yogman wrote a Guest Editorial regarding the Park City School District Bond. Since his editorial was published in print, the length was limited. Mr Yogman was kind enough to provide Parkrag with his full paper on the subject.

School Realignment – Academics

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

By Peter Yogman

Many issues relating to the proposed school bond and grade realignment have been raised, particularly around the very large investment in sports facilities. However, bottom line, the overall program has been justified as being good academically for children. I take serious issue with that position. The proposal will do serious emotional damage to many young children and will be academically devastating for older ones. This conclusion was reached after reviewing well over 70 relevant, academic journal articles and consulting with a professor at Harvard University affiliated with the Center on the Developing Child. This is a surprising conclusion because there is much to praise in some of the programs underway in our school system. I enclose some references to academic papers in parentheses.

The Good. Preschool offers one of the greatest returns of any academic investment especially for disadvantaged children. See the work of Nobel economist JJ Heckman (The Economics of Inequality) or Art Rolnick (A Productive Investment: Early Child Development). The earlier intervention is done the better, but the programs must be well designed unlike many Head Start programs. While teaching cognitive concepts is important (see here for Utah preschool and Kindergarten core standards http://www.schools.utah.gov/CURR/preschoolkindergarten/Core/StrategiesActivities.aspx) the latest research indicates that developing nonacademic readiness skills and what is known as executive function are more important predictors of future academic achievement. Readiness skills include a.) approaches to learning such as attentiveness, curiosity, flexibility, and organization, b.) social and emotional development such as controlling temper, respecting others, c.) language development d.) cognition and general knowledge, e.) control of externalizing behaviors such as anger, fighting and impulsiveness, and d.) low levels of internalizing behaviors such as anxiety, low self esteem, sadness, and loneliness. Executive function is more broadly defined as “the processes that underlie goal-directed behavior, including self-regulation, planning, working memory, response inhibition, and resistance to interference” (Individual Differences in Executive Functioning Predict Preschoolers’ Improvement…; Carlson, Zelazo et al.) These skills are best taught at home through structured play and active parent engagement in activities like reading, but for disadvantaged children preschool may be the best option. Controlling for nonacademic readiness skills eliminates the African American/white academic achievement gap, which is an incredible result (School Readiness, Full Day Kindergarten, and Student Achievement; Le et al.). I strongly support the PC schools preschool program and any expansion. It appears to be in good hands with Tom VanGorder. Children are rapidly brought up to core standards, tested to monitor progress with intervention for those not meeting goals. I do not know if it is also designed to improve nonacademic readiness skills and I think that is worthy of further investigation. I also support the implementation of the Professional Learning Center approach in higher grades. This coordinates teaching and involves periodic testing to guide intervention and mentoring when required. In fact, rapid assessment to alert teachers to students missing key learning goals accompanied by individualized intervention is identified as the most cost effective approach to raising student achievement (The Cost Effectiveness of 22 Approaches to Raising Student Achievement; Yeh).

The Bad. Implementing Full Day Kindergarten (FDK) to support an expanded reading program is a large element of the school realignment requiring movement of 5th grade to a new middle school campus. The best studies look at long-term longitudinal effects and find that improvements in academic performance “largely disappear by the first grade and are eliminated by the third grade (Is Full Better than Half; Cannon et al.). Another study from the Rand Corporation, the premier social research institution, concluded similarly. “Full-day kindergartens have also proven popular because a spate of early studies showed promising effects on the cognitive development of children in full day kindergarten compared with those attending half-day kindergarten. However, later studies have shown that effects largely disappear by the first grade and are eliminated by the third grade” (Le et al.). A large recent study from Canada provides further evidence. “Our findings indicate no apparent benefits of universal FDK.” “Our results suggest that expectations of wide-ranging, long-term benefits of FDK are unwarranted” (Long Term Benefits of Full Day Kindergarten; Brownell et al.). Studies that show positive benefits are usually statistically underpowered, show selection or tester bias, and are not sufficiently longitudinal (don’t look out far enough). Offsetting these conclusions are some preliminary data indicating that FDK may benefit certain populations. The Canadian study showed a small benefit in math for low-income girls. Another study has shown “less of a growth rate difference between homes where English is the primary language and homes where it is not” (Do the greater academic gains made by Full-Day Kindergarten Children Persist through the Third Grade; Walsh et al.). This could lend some support for FDK, but not universally. What should give us serious pause are these frightening findings from the Rand study.

“Children who participated in full day kindergarten programs demonstrated poorer dispositions toward learning, lower self control, and poorer interpersonal skills than children in part day programs. Children in full day programs also showed a greater tendency to engage in externalizing and internalizing behaviors than children in part day programs.” These are the same nonacademic school readiness skills that are so predictive of future academic success as shown in the discussion of preschool. I encourage you to review the definitions. By pushing students into FDK before they are developmentally ready we may jeopardize their academic futures. Since much of this is emotional damage it goes further; “influences on emotionality can influence the development of neurological interconnections among structures underlying emotion and higher order cognition” (Conceptualization of Children’s Functioning at School Entry; Clancy Blair). Translation – emotional stress in young children causes the brain to rewire! Do you think the push for FDK should be examined a little more closely?

An interesting range of results from pushing too many hours and too much academics at an inappropriate age can also be seen in preschool studies. In a study of disadvantaged children and children from more enriched home environments at preschool centers it was found that “For children from low income families, additional hours per week were associated with some gains in reading and math and few detrimental effects on social development. But while higher income children enjoy gains in pre-reading and math skills when attending at moderate levels they see no cognitive gains and substantially greater behavior problems associated with additional hours of weekly center attendance” (How Much is Too Much? The Influence of Preschool Centers on Children’s Social and Cognitive Development; Luck, Bridges et al.). For children from tough home environments all day school at an early age may be appropriate for some because school is a better environment than home. However, for children from better, more enriched home environments too much school is destructive both cognitively and emotionally. This is why FDK should be a choice of parents dependent upon their knowledge of the maturity and readiness of their child and the type of home environment that can be offered. A one-size-fits all approach is simply bad policy.

There are many alternatives for these kids that might be more effective than enforcing FDK on all children and pushing 5th graders into middle school that also has dire consequences as discussed below. Year round half-day kindergarten for children needing language reinforcement has been shown to be more effective and less damaging than FDK and prevents the summer drop off in language skills found with English Learning Students. To understand the magnitude of the task refer to the paper “The Early Catastrophe: The 30 Million Word Gap by Age 3” by Hart and Risley. Intervention must be very early and also persistent from preschool through third grade and possibly beyond. It must involve the parents to the extent possible. See for instance the program used in Chicago for inner city youth (Effects of a Preschool Plus Follow-on Intervention Program for Children at Risk, Reynolds) that created benefits measureable through 5th grade through a persistent program of mentoring and intervention from preschool through the third grade. We also know that in terms of cost effectiveness for improving academic achievement FDK is well down the list (Yeh).

A great set of resources can be found here at the Harvard website (http://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/) which summarize both the science and effectiveness early intervention programs and what a good program looks like. The best programs emphasize development of executive functioning skills, not just knowledge stuffing at the earliest grades for the best long-term outcomes. I recommend looking at the research of the neuroscientist Adele Diamond from the University of British Columbia whose work was introduced to me by the Harvard professor. I think some in our school administration have some awareness of this research but kindergarten and other programs are still in the early design stage. Shouldn’t we see what is being proposed? We may still be operating on decades old common core principles and not what is our newest and best understanding today from the latest research at our leading academic institutions.

The Ugly. FDK is a large driver for moving the 5th grade to a large middle school campus that would house, in multiple buildings, 5th through 8th grade. It has been stated that this change would lead to better academic outcomes because students would not be changing schools as often from the current 6/7 grades currently at Ecker to the 8/9 grades housed at Treasure Mountain. PC Schools has posted on their website a paper which purportedly supports this theory of eliminating a school change as being the driver for better academic outcomes (Stuck in the Middle: Impacts of Grade Configuration in Public Schools; Rockoff and Lockwood). Since I actually read the paper along with many others I can report the paper says nothing of the sort. It says, “Alternatively, it may be that any move to a new school has long lasting negative impacts on student achievement. Given the limitations of our data and the types of structures currently used in New York City, we cannot estimate the impacts of switching schools at other grade levels.” The entire thrust of the article is that middle school, in itself, creates terrible academic outcomes. “Moving students from elementary to middle school in 6th or 7th grade causes significant drops in academic achievement.” “The effects are large and they persist.” In fact we know they persist into high school (The Impact of Alternative Grade Configurations on Student Outcomes through Middle and High School; Schwerdt and West). Both papers recommend elimination of middle school entirely with a K-8 lower school and a 9-12 upper school, which has shown to produce much better academic outcomes. Of course it would be difficult to eliminate middle school entirely but should we not at least minimize it based on the following data?

“Students who entered middle school in grade 6 underperform students relative to students who entered middle school in grade 7.” “The immediate effect of transition in grade 5 for students who attended a K-4 school is larger than for students who move to middle schools in grade 6 or 7, and the cumulative effect of middle school attendance on achievement through grade 8 is as large or larger. This lends further support to the idea that middle school attendance may be worse for students who enter at younger ages (Rockoff).” We are doing the exact opposite of what is recommended by the best academic studies! We are creating a huge middle school campus and moving students at a younger age. We are setting ourselves up for a potential academic disaster. The only good thing about this realignment is moving 9th grade into the high school, which I strongly support. The causes of the middle school drop off are still not well understood. However one good statistical result cited in the Rockoff paper indicates that cohort sizes (the size of any one class) “are a small but significant part of the decreases in achievement we document.” The paper goes on to say, “adolescent children exhibit increased negativity, low self-esteem, poor ability to judge risks and consequences of their actions, and other traits that may make them difficult to educate when they are together in large groups.” Does not a single, huge middle school campus do exactly the opposite of what is best by creating the largest concentration of vulnerable adolescents possible?

Conclusion. Perhaps we should take the time to rethink grade alignment and this school bond. Maybe expanding elementary to grade 6 (possible for all schools except Parley’s which will require some creative design work) would be a better option to minimize the middle school experience. Perhaps retaining Treasure Mountain (and rebuilding it or extensively fixing it) would allow for two separate 7/8 schools with much smaller cohort sizes. Along with the issues with FDK this community needs to take a deep breath and look more closely at the evidence and decide what is really best academically for our children. For an investment of this size with implications and issues this large would it not be prudent to invite some of the authors of these papers to speak in our community? I believe our school board has lost its way becoming infatuated with their favorite sports facility instead of focusing on doing the research on what is academically best. The school administration has, in my opinion, lost its way with its honest concern for lower achieving Hispanic students. We can do what is right for these children without imposing damaging programs on all children. Do not make the mistake of assuming we will not fund what is needed unless it is made universal. That is not the Park City I know which is generous to a fault.
Vote No on the School Bond now so we may vote Yes on the right bond next year that we will all agree provides the b

Tonight, I’m live blogging the discussion and debate on the Park City School District’s proposed bond. This is part of the Project For Deeper Understanding at St Luke’s Church.

The moderator is Dr John Hanrahan. School Board representatives include Phil Kaplan and Tania Knauer. Pro Bond representatives include Moe Hickey and Katherine Hoggan. Representatives opposing the bond include Joe Cronley and Ali Ziesler.

(more…)

If you are looking for a comprehensive overview on what areas will be impacted by the bond, why the school district feels we need it, and many other details, I would encourage you to view a powerpoint presentation members of the school district will be providing to the County Council on Wednesday.

You can view it here:

http://summitcounty.org/DocumentCenter/View/2588

I had previously written that the total school bond interest would be $44 million. A reader corrected me and indicated that bond interest would likely be in the $25 million range… I will post his information below:

You need to go look up how amortization on a loan/bond works, because this isn’t it. So yes, you are wrong, and I will correct you. A 20 year bond like this one is entirely extinguished by the fees paid by the end of the 20 year period, so the balance due (and interest paid) drops each year. If you are unfamiliar with the concept of amortization here’s a quick primer:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amortization

It’s like your mortgage (unless you have an interest only or balloon mortgage) – you don’t pay 4% interest on your principal every year for 30 years and THEN have to pay off the principal at the end (though many mortgages prior to the 1930s worked that way).

Interest costs @ 4%/20 year amortization for a $56 million bond will be around $25 million. Of course in many cases bonds/loans are paid off ahead of schedule – if revenues exceed expectations, the district could decide to retire the bond early. Or they could use the money for other purposes and continue paying the bondholders on schedule.

Regardless, yes, more students and aging infrastructure do cost money, if not quite as much as you’re estimating here. In general, bond issues are often “the largest ever” simply due to inflation and population growth. In inflation-adjusted dollars, we’ll be paying less in taxes than we were a decade ago, though.

What’s your alternative proposal?

I do hate when I get things completely wrong but appreciate when people let me know. Thanks to this reader for pointing this out and I apologize to the public for posting incorrect information.

Note: This post was updated to reflect a comment provided by a reader indicated I did not calculate interest correctly.

I like to check out citizen comments on the Park Record. There is always something to learn. Today I was looking at the heated conversations on the “No School Bond” group article from Saturday. Commenters kept saying things like “$55 million is a lot of money” to spend.

I just wanted to point out that we as a community are not just spending $66 million on this plan ($56 million bond plus $10 million that’s in the bank). There is also interest on the school bond that should be accounted for. The School Board has estimated the interest rate at 4% (although it could turn out less depending on when the bonds are issued).

Four percent doesn’t sound like much, but it does add up

Borrowing: $56,300,000
Rate: 4%
Term: 20 years

Total borrowing costs are approximately $25.5 million.

So, the total money being put into this project by our community is:

$56 million (bond) + $10 million (in the bank) + $25.5 million (interest) =

$91.5 million.

That is the cost of this plan to the community.

Many of you probably think I am anti-school bond because I rail against it so often. Yet, my family is in the perfect position to benefit from this bond. I have two children, the first of which will enter kindergarten in a couple of years. Both my wife and I work, so I need full day Kindergarten. If I had to “upgrade” to all day kindergarten from half day, I believe that costs an extra $4,000 per child. If I went private, it would cost upwards of $10K-$15K per child. So, the selfish way I look at it is this bond will cost me roughly $2,400 ($120 for 20 years) but save me at least $8,000 ($4,000 X 2 ) when all is said and done. That’s a net gain of $5,600.

My kids will also benefit from fewer kids in the elementary school. Once they hit the 5-6 school at Ecker, it should still be in great shape. They’ll likely play sports in high school and it will be nice to have an indoor facility for practice (the field house should still be standing). They’ll also likely be in some sort of arts program, which should have more space in the high school.

It’s almost a no brainer. I save money on kindergarten and get shiny new buildings for free. Thank you second home owners.

Yet, something about that line of reasoning leaves me feeling a little dirty. Do I think this is the best plan? No. There are probably 5 ideas I like better than this one, including my crazy idea to put the whole district on the Triangle Parcel along Highway 40. That would be the same parcel of land adjacent to where Summit County Community Development Director says the epicenter of where Parkites will be living in 20 years. But, that ship has sailed.

The one thing that gives me pause about voting with my wallet is the question of could we do better if we spent more time. I think back to the General Plan for the Snyderville Basin. It took years and years to hash out what we wanted our community to look like. There had to be at least 100 public meetings regarding the plan. Did anyone get everything they wanted? No. Was it a good process? Yes. Now that it’s “done” do I look back and think, “wow…they should have done that differently.” No.

The question is will I feel the same about the school process, given they only spent about 10 months and went with a different plan than the committee that spent the 10 months recommended. I already have a number of concerns, but will those concerns ultimately turn out to be nothing?

I know I’ll save $5,600 but what am I going to get in return — modern 21st century schools that will help propel my children to success (and engender happiness along the way) … half finished buildings because the money runs out (that also have traffic problems) … or something in between.

That’s the question.

At the heart of the Park City School District plan for rebuilding schools is the concept of grade realignment. Grade realignment means that Pre-K to 4th grade will be in elementary schools. There will be a new 5th/6th school, a 6th/7th school, and the high school. We’ll be moving schools around, adding on to them, and making multi million dollar changes ($65 million in changes to be exact). The reason given for grade realignment was that only 9% of Hispanic 11th graders were proficient in English. So, the idea was spawned that we should have all day Kindergarten for all children in order to improve results. With the addition of these extra Kindergartners, there wouldn’t be room in our elementary schools, so we had to move the 5th grade out and it caused a chain reaction across the district.

At face value, all day Kindergarten seems to make sense to solve proficiency issues. If we can only have 4 more hours a day with Kindergarten kids who don’t speak English as their first language, they will learn English more quickly. In fact studies show that by second grade, many English as a second language students have caught up and are on par with their classmates. It truly sounds like a great solution. So, what’s the problem?

Fade-out.

You see, studies show that there is great success for children in full day Kindergarten (vs half day) until first or second grade. Anecdotal evidence shows the same thing. Many Kindergarten teachers describe miraculous changes that happen after a few months. The problem is that the impact seems short lived. In fact, most studies seem to show that any benefit of full day Kindergarten over half day Kindergarten disappears by the end of second grade (often by first grade). Fade out indicates that those children who had all day Kindergarten, and those who had full day Kindergarten, will have statistically similar test scores by 3rd grade (i.e., there is no test score benefit related to all day K over half day K).

There is now an effort to figure out why that is. There are some who say that the methodologies used in these studies looking at the long-term effects of all day Kindergarten are flawed. That may be true. Yet, what seems to be true for sure is that there are few if any well designed studies that show that a full day of Kindergarten versus a half day of Kindergarten adds any lasting effect. Take this Ed Central article on a recent study on all day Kindergarten. The article is very much in support of all day Kindergarten and describes a new study by Chloe R. Gibbs that uses new data to show benefits of all day Kindergarten. Yet, what does it conclude?

I would encourage you to read the article. It is very balanced. It appears to conclude that Full-Day-K seems to have benefits for a while. However, it says that a lot of research concludes those benefits are short-term, but that more research is needed to really know why. It also talks about how some research shows test scores aren’t improved long-term through Full-Day-K but some adult outcomes, like long-term earnings, are improved. Lest you think I cherry-picked an article on the subject, do a search on Google for “all day Kindergarten fade out.” The results of studies are all over the map. There is a lot of defense of all day Kindergarten. However, if you read through the literature, I would challenge you to come away with a rock-solid feeling that our 11th grade Hispanic students are going to improve their English proficiency test scores through this effort.

So what do I take away from it? There needs to be more research on Full-Day-K to determine whether outcomes last.

What’s the problem with this? It seems we began this school rebuilding adventure with the notion that we had to realign grades to help our English as a Second language kids. However, research doesn’t show it will have any impact over the half day Kindergarten (which we already have) past the second grade. Research may eventually show that it works or research may show it doesn’t. Yet, we’ve made a BIG plan based on an idea that just sounds good. If we didn’t realign the grades, we may still have to rebuild Treasure Mountain on Kearns ($25 million). We may still want an Athletic Field House ($12 million) but we wouldn’t have to upheave the entire school district to achieve the goal.

For a school district that prides itself on making decision based on research, this is more than a little worrisome.