Since it is unlikely I will be able to present my
full prepared remarks in the time given tonight, I have brought copies for each
Board member and would like to ask that a copy of them be entered into the
public record and included with tonight’s minutes. Thank you.
I have always felt that Freedom Academy is my
school. We’ve been at the school for six
years and have spent many, many hours volunteering and working to help the
school. I imagine that many other
parents and teachers would say the same thing.
Freedom Academy is not just a school for many of our parents and
teachers; it is a second home. In fact,
the main appeal of Freedom Academy and other charter schools is that they are
supposed to be run by and accountable to the parents whose children attend.
Parents and teachers at this school need to have a
voice that is respected in its decisions.
I am concerned that in recent years, we have lost the important voices
that are needed in order to make our school great. We are losing many good parents, students,
and teachers because they no longer feel they have a respected voice in the
direction of this school.
At the last Governing Board meeting, the PTO
president spoke of one family leaving because they couldn’t handle the homework
levels at this school. She then spoke of
how wonderful it is that we have such high standards. I agree it is important for us to have high
standards, but I have also spoken to this same family who is leaving, and while
homework is one factor in their decision, there are many, many more factors
involved in the decision, including the loss of many of Freedom Academy’s
Specialties and the feeling that the high school is taking resources and focus
away from the lower grades. This is a
family who has wonderful students and that has consistently and
unceasingly donated hundreds of volunteer hours each year. Our school’s charter requires us
to have “family retention” as one of our long-term goals. I am concerned that because of recent events
and practices, we are failing at that goal.
I would like to suggest that in the future, we do anonymous polling of
those who are leaving to find out how we can better serve and retain our good
families.
There are multiple reasons the parents at this
school feel that they have lost their voice.
I wish to outline a few of them in the remainder of my remarks.
First, I want to go on record as stating that I am
not opposed to a Freedom Academy High School.
I personally feel that my children will have more opportunities if they
attend the larger area high schools because of their excellent academic and
extracurricular programs, but I do understand the appeal of a small, focused
high school. If the vast majority of
parents are informed about the real costs of a high school, the impact on the
lower grades, and the curriculum and still support a high school, then I would
suggest that a Freedom Academy high school has a good chance of being successful.
I do, however, have grave concerns about the school moving
forward with a high school because of the following unresolved issues:
1. Board meetings occur with very
little notice and concern for parents’ busy schedules. For example, I heard two weeks ago from my neighborhood
representative that this meeting was going to be held tonight. I was going to be out of town today, but
because I knew two weeks in advance, I was able to rearrange things so that I
could be here tonight. The majority of
parents at the school, however, were given notice only yesterday via
email. The school’s website calendar
didn’t show a Board meeting until yesterday.
This might not matter as much if it was easy to find out information
about what occurs at Board meetings.
However, that is not the case.
2. Accurate and unbiased information
is difficult to obtain and not shared with the parent body. It is extremely difficult for parents to be
informed of how and why decisions are made at the school. By law, minutes from Board meetings are
required to be posted and information about finances, past Board meeting
agendas and other important studies, surveys and documents are supposed to be a
matter of public record. Parents are
supposed to have a way of knowing what occurs at Board meetings without having
to attend them.
a. Minutes from Board meetings are not
available. There are
multiple instances of minutes not being posted online and this situation is
on-going. For example, there have been three
important Board meetings held this spring with significant discussion and
decisions made, yet none of those minutes have been posted. At the last Board meeting, Ken Parkinson
stated that all of these minutes were available to anyone who wanted them, but
in actuality, it isn’t that simple. I
was required to pay for copies of the minutes I asked for in May, costing me about
$30. More recently, I asked two and a
half weeks ago to be given copies of the last Board meeting minutes, and the
financial documents handed out and have yet to receive them.
b. The Proposal to add the 9-12 grades
that was taken to the State two years ago was not approved, posted, or circulated
to the parents. This,
despite the requirement that any movement that changes Freedom Academy’s
charter requires not just a 6-1 vote of the Board (which was not done) but also
a vote of ratification by a majority of the parents.
c. Questions are not being answered. Many individuals have asked objective and
important questions about on-site and off-site expansion and most especially
about its financial impact. Most
questions have been ignored. For
example:
i.
Traffic
Studies. Many
neighbors and parents are concerned about the safety of children in the
neighborhood. The school has stated that
they’ve done “extensive study on this issue” and Chris Helvey stated at the
last meeting that all of the safety and traffic concerns had been resolved with
on-site expansion and that the only reason it wasn’t going forward was because
of builder financing. However, multiple
people have asked to see copies of the traffic studies and the safety plans and
have received no response.
ii.
Financial
documents. At the last
governing board meeting, a budget was passed out to Board members. This should be a matter of public record, yet
no copies were made available to the audience or to the public during or after
the meeting. I sent an email on May 23rd
asking to be given a copy and received no response. I followed up with a phone call to the school
on June 11th asking for copies of this budget and received no
response. Other individuals have also
tried to follow up and ask about the financial implications of a high school
and have also been ignored.
Because of the lack of
clear and open communication at the school, most parents have to rely on rumors
and discussions with other parents or employees to make their decisions, rather
than on actual and published facts.
3. Board members are not given
adequate time to consider important decisions and peruse important documents
before votes are taken.
There have been too many “urgent” decisions made in recent months that
have made it difficult for Board members to really consider all the information
needed and, most especially, to gather the voice of the parents and others
involved before voting. To name just one
example, it is my understanding that a budget for next school year will be
presented tonight and a vote of approval will be expected to go forward without
the Board members having the time to adequately read the budget, consider the
implications and changes proposed, or ask other parents for their input and
ideas.
4. Objective Surveys of Parental Opinions
in regards to the high school have not been performed. There were several surveys done in 2009 and
2010, but though the school has stated these showed a “93% support for
expansion,” there is no way to verify how accurate that information is, what
questions were asked, or how many responded to those surveys, since no copies
of this survey have been produced. In
the past several years, as more decisions have been made about the high school,
and especially in the last two months, multiple individuals have encouraged the
school to survey the current parent body.
Still, no surveys have been done.
One individual was told that once the decision was made to move forward
with the high school, “parental comment was closed at that point.” Another individual was told that it wouldn’t
be fair to survey the parents since not everyone at the school speaks
English. A third individual was told
that surveys weren’t needed because the school already knew how the parents felt
about expansion and it wouldn’t be fair to the ninth-graders. I have several concerns with these
responses. The biggest, however, is that
this is a charter school. At a charter school, parental comment
should never be closed. The input
and involvement of all the parents need to be considered and acted upon,
particularly when it concerns something so fundamental as changes in our
charter and our school name. At the last
Board meeting, Mrs. Herring stated that in recent weeks, two surveys had been
done by parents. She then gave the
results of these surveys. Since I wasn’t
surveyed and no one I’ve talked to was surveyed, I wondered what these surveys
were that Mrs. Herring referred to. Who
was surveyed? What questions were
asked? How valid is the
information? I asked the front desk
these questions and the employee there did not know anything about these
surveys. I asked her to find out and get
me copies of the responses, but have received no response. It seems deceptive on the one hand to refuse
to do an accurate and unbiased school-wide survey and then on the other hand to
quote the results of two independent surveys that certainly don’t represent the
views of the entire student body.
5. Rather than answering questions,
providing information, and encouraging the input of teachers and parents at the
school, and then leaving it up to the Board to make the final decision, the
administration and some Board members have actively campaigned for their point
of view. Students
were not treated equally in regards to their high school choice and peer
pressure was used inappropriately for the benefit of those who wanted to
advocate for a Freedom Academy high school.
These actions have involved students inappropriately, distracting from
the learning environment. Some students took license from the administration’s
strong stance to bully those who were attending other high schools or whose
parents had opposing viewpoints. I
sent an email outlining some of my concerns about this to Mrs. Herring on May
10. I received no response to my email
and in the ensuing weeks, events of this nature continued to occur:
a. Students
wishing to attend other schools were not treated equally. Some individuals wishing to register for
Provo High missed ideal registration times because Provo High counselors were
not allowed to come to Freedom Academy’s campus. This is a change from prior years.
b. Eighth-graders
who went to the front office asking how to register for Provo High were told
“That’s not our problem.”
c. On
several occasions, students signed up for Freedom’s high school were given
privileges not extended to other students at the school. For example, they were taken to a private
residence owned by the school for a high school pep rally and pizza party.
d. Petitions
in favor of on-site expansion were placed prominently at the front office and circulated
three different times. At the same time,
those students whose parents signed a petition opposed to on-site expansion
were singled out. Several eighth-grade
students in this situation were confronted multiple times by their peers,
asking them why their parents signed it, questioning their parents’
intelligence, and saying things like, “I can’t believe they signed it.”
e. One
student planning on another high school had been given a Freedom Academy High
School T-shirt for doing volunteer work.
When she wore this shirt on T-shirt and jeans day, she was approached by
several students who told her that she didn’t deserve to wear this T-shirt.
f.
Class time was devoted to a debate about
whether the high school should be placed on site, with the result that students
opposed to a high school were further singled out and targeted. One student made the comment in class, “If
you don’t want the high school here, you should just move away.” Nothing was done to stop the debate and
students who tried to give opposing opinions felt they weren’t given equal
time. The debate continued into recess.
g. The
Board CAO worked diligently just before the last Board meeting to spread the
word through the neighborhood that their concerns about traffic and safety had
been heard and that the administration was no longer going to recommend on-site
expansion. The result was that many
neighbors, feeling their concerns had been addressed, stayed home from this
meeting.
h. At
the same time, certain Board members and the administration worked hard to make
sure the May Board meeting was packed with those whose opinions matched their
own. Parents with students signed up for
the high school were called and personally invited to attend the meeting as
well as asked if they were still committed to the high school. At the same time, peer pressure was
effectively used to get the eighth-graders to come to the meeting. The students were attending Lagoon that day and
the word was spread among them that they should come to the Board meeting that
night because “Mrs. Parkinson is bribing us with pizza to show up and say good
things about the high school.” (a direct quote from a student who was in a
friend’s car).
i.
After the public comment period, pizza
was served to eighth-graders who came to the Board meeting held in May.
j.
While some of these things perhaps just
show poor judgment and not ill intent, the cumulative effect of these events
was that many students had a very difficult experience their last few months at
their beloved K-8 school.
k. These
events also cast doubt on what might happen in the future if a high school is
added. Will eighth-graders every year be
seen as recruits to boost numbers at Freedom Academy high school? Will there be division and acrimony and peer
pressure every year? Will students who
want to attend other high schools be respected and encouraged in their school
choice? Is this an issue we want to deal
with every year? Freedom Academy is a
school of choice, and all choices need to be respected.
6. Valuable resources – in time,
talent, and finances -- are being taken from the K-8 school in order to support
the high school and parents are not being informed of these issues. Specifically:
a. Despite
our charter’s limiting class sizes to 25 students per class and 75 per grade,
for a total of 675, budgets are being written that show a total student body
next fall of 800 students. The high
school currently has less than 55 committed students. Unless the school is planning on somehow
finding an additional 70 high school students before fall, it is clear that the
only way to have 800 students in the fall would be to add students to the
younger grades, thus overcrowding the K-8 school and violating our
charter.
b. The
vast majority of time in Board meetings in recent years has been spent
discussing, debating, and considering issues relating to the addition of a high
school, leaving little time for the important and vital needs of the current
K-8 students. For example, issues of
specialties, safety, goals, achievement,
have been put aside on multiple occasions because of lack of time.
c. Administration
and staff members at the current school have spent “countless hours” working on
high school-related issues: hiring,
scheduling, dealing with petitions and concerns from neighbors and political
leaders, drafting and encouraging the signing of their own petition, finding
locations, etc. This is all time that
takes away from the current students.
d. Electives
and curriculum in the seventh and eighth grade this fall are suffering because
of decisions about the high school.
French is no longer being offered nor is any language other than Latin. I asked the reason and was told that Mrs.
Flewellen would only have time to teach one French class in the fall and that
would be offered only to the high school students. Latin is now required of both seventh and
eighth grade students, with no way to opt out.
Orchestra was cut two years ago and is still not being offered. In fact, the only choices my eighth-grader
was offered for next year was a choice between two PE options for one semester
and a choice between art and choir for the other semester. Our valuable seventh and eighth graders
deserve better. Parental voices need to
be heard and their concerns addressed.
Though there are many issues that Freedom Academy
needs to address, I do want to say that there are also many wonderful things at
this school. The parents are very
involved. The teachers and administrators
are kind and loving towards our children.
Our school’s wellness policy is a model for other schools in the
state. We’ve had some amazing Spanish
and music programs in the past that I’d love to see re-instated. We’ve had some great drama, track, and other
programs I’d like to see continue.
At the same time, many of our most committed parents
and teachers are leaving the school because of issues like the ones I’ve
described. Others want to voice their
opinion but fear that their children will be targeted and treated differently
if they say anything. I understand these
concerns because I’ve felt the same way.
Because of the lack of clear and open communication from the Board and
the administration and a lack of tolerance for opposing viewpoints, many of our
best and brightest teachers and families are feeling silenced and are leaving
the school. For the good of the school,
this can’t be allowed to continue.
It’s time for the parents and teachers at this
school to be given a voice. It’s time
for emails to be responded to, questions to be answered, and parents to feel
included in decisions. It’s time for more
information to be shared openly so that there is clear communication to rely
on, not just rumor. It’s time for better
communication, more openness, and more transparency. I give my voice as one who wants to work
together to see Freedom Academy improve and work through these issues and
emerge on the other side as a stronger school.
