10 Questions With ... Decatur Superintendent Phyllis Edwards

Despite pressure from a board member and concerned parents, the City Schools of Decatur has no plans to about school start times at Tuesday's board meeting.

Decatur school boardmember John Ahmann requested that the board chair and Superintendent Phyllis Edwards add an agenda item for the 6:30 p.m. meeting.

Ahmann said he met with concerned parents and SLT members and came up with a new bell schedule and bus cost savings plan that he hoped might revive the discussion and . He then sent an email to the board chair.

"My concern is transparency and information to make informed decisions as a board member." Ahmann said. "The board has an important fiduciary role and we're not getting information to make pretty important decisions." 

Earlier this week, Decatur Metro blogged about the request and parent Garrett Goebel sent out an electronic petition to Decatur parents to sign and leave comments regarding the earlier start times for Decatur High and Renfroe Middle.

As of this posting, about 173 have already signed the petition, including parent Julie Hotchkiss, who was treasurer of the Decatur High PTSA.

Hotchkiss at a previous board meeting, raised concerns over sleep and teens needing more of it for peak academic performance.NPR recently reported a story on the topic. Hotchkiss presented studies on the topic in hopes of swaying the board to rethink Edwards' proposal for earlier school start times at the time.

Instead, the board voted, with Ahmann opposing, to adopt the schedule below, including earlier start times for Decatur High.

Patch interviewed Edwards to ask questions around these and other issues currently facing the Decatur school system.

Here is what she had to say:

Q: Are you aware of the iPetition and remarks being made by concerned parents?

A: There’s a lot of information that seems to be making its rounds and remarks being made about me and other board members and I don’t think the true facts are coming out. The truth is that anyone that’s been following CSD has known that we are opening up a new school. And not only opening up a new school but we redrew the [attendance] lines so that we could have another K-3 school. There was a great deal of participation that took place with 13 different options. We did that in December. Then we worked on the transportation plan for the Fifth Avenue Academy. We also told people that we’re going to limit bus transportation. We’re trying to get the 'please walk if you're within a mile,' aspect covered, which I’ve heard from parents. But we had to add on an additional route. When you add additional routes, you have to adjust existing routes if you want to maintain the same number of buses.

Q: SLT (which stands for School Leadership Team) members and DHS SLT chair Susan Strickland (see attached PDF) feel they were misrepresented to the Decatur school board during the last meeting. How do you respond to that? 

A: We invited SLT members to come before we put forth the final schedule. We proposed upwards of four schedules. If I wasn’t listening, I did ask Mr. Roaden to contact them and really, no school is more than a half hour different from what it was before. Five people came to that SLT meeting. There was a representative from Decatur High School. Personally, I talked to the senior class. What superintendent does that? I relayed my comments back in a board meeting and reflected on them in my comments [to the board]. I heard in

Q: What did you take into account at that time?

A: I took into account that Renfroe Middle didn't need to be out so early. I tried to listen to all the comments and synthesize those. The elementary school start times are fine at this point. But I made a case for why I linked the Fifth Avenue Academy and Renfroe Middle buses with middle school at a later start time because all the pieces I heard with [Renfroe] and getting the walk and roll going - and people saying let’s have them start later so they have more daylight to take these options and not always use the buses. 

Q: What happened in May?

A: It seemed we were being asked for different kinds of information. What I had put on the table was being questioned. That was fine but I did make a recommendation. At that point, there was a substitute motion made and people have to understand once I made a recommendation, it's up to the board. Another board member made a substitute motion but it did not go through. 

Q: The board member was John Ahmann who has said that he feels that there's a lack of transparency and that he was not provided enough information to make an informed decision. How do you respond to that?

A: I really don’t want to comment about my board member at all. I will say from my perspective that it has been an open process. I don’t personally agree that there’s a lack of transparency. I don’t understand why this issue has become the lightning rod that it has. Once something comes to the board, I have 5 bosses. I believe four were there [at the May meeting]. If they decide they want to go with something then that’s the direction I take. It would not be up to me to bring it up again and bring it out again. The board members – the people that were there that heard all the discussion back and forth when the substitute motion was called, that’s when they have to make their decision as representatives of the board. Short of me making a recommendation that’s where my part stops. I did that. To be characterized as not doing what I’m asked to do or caring about what people are saying, I certainly do care. If we’re talking about a philosophical or big ticket item like the calendars and when it got changed. If we're talking about something of that magnitude opening, closing schools, drawing lines, those kinds of things, then I would expect that I would be charged by board to look at things, including what research says about later start times. I’m trying to get through the school year. I have a school to open and that's a huge undertaking. There's a move that has to take place. There’s plenty of work to do. ... I don’t like to see that staff members be caught like deer in headlights. That’s not fair to them. There are often times that it appears something is not being answered or challenged. It could be that the person does not want to get into a contentious situation.

Q: Did you listen to parents, SLT members and students and their needs throughout the process?

A: Yes. I believe I did. That’s how I work. I would be happy to have a group of folks interested in this issue and work with them and take this on at a later date. But let’s look at it. Just because 100 or more made up their minds that they want it a certain way and the board has voted a certain way, I don't get between that. If this is what they want, to revisit the issue, I agree. At a later time, let’s have a longer time discussion and we can do this by midyear next year. We can get all the answers to all the questions. Let’s also make sure we are talking to not just some of the people, but all of the people. Let’s hear what the parents have to say. Let’s poll them. But let’s give them enough time.

Q: During one of the board meetings, you mentioned start times could be studied further. Will you revisit this issue in the future?

A: I really want to look at if people start dropping off their child at 8 a.m. or not at the middle school. Because the principal is saying this is going to happen.  There’s maybe another side of the population out there that would like to drop their kid at 8 a.m. I read emails to say, how dare you have my child get out of school late. I don’t want my child falling asleep in their food.' Well, we need to lay cards out on the table. I’m not against it. I’m happy to go that way. But let’s just make sure we understand what the parameters are and what the different sides are to this. We need to watch this for the next school year. If your school starts at 8:45 a.m., and you believe your child needs more sleep, then that’s where we need to be. Your child isn’t going to be getting extra sleep anyhow if you drop them at 8 a.m.

Q: Is there a lack of transparency and lack of information? 

A: We were asked for a great deal of information from Mr. Ahmann, which we provided and he had ahead of time in his hands. I also made my staff member available to him to talk with him to get answers to his questions. My goal here for last eight years is to provide board members with enough information and time to make decisions they've been asked to make. We’ve had multiple budget meetings. We've had all day budget sessions. There were many opportunities to request additional information and I have on any number of issues. I provide as much information and I get the board packet out. And if they need to additional information, I provide or try very hard to get it. If you check with other board members, I’ve been successful with that. I've kept this system afloat over very bad budget times and I’m very cautious and careful. Sometimes the information that is being asked for is the day of a meeting or in voluminous ways. We will do our very best to get every stick of information out there. I don’t have a cast of thousands or forecasters but I’m happy to do whatever needs to be done. I have provided information even between this budget meeting and that budget meeting. Now if I continue to be asked numerous, voluminous questions and information now almost at the ninth hour, I can only do the very best that I can to get that information. I feel like I've given information so people and the board can make good decisions. I don't know what is different about this year than in past years. If someone is saying I’m not trying to provide enough information for people to do their job, then I would submit that would have been happening in past years and it has not. I have not caused a financial situation here. In fact, this school system has been kept more [financially sound] than any other school system in the metro area. I am more willing and have never said no to research reviews or projects. If you want to see about where to get rid of buses completely, let’s talk about it. Give me a few months --- but let’s talk about it. I have not been non-responsive. My heart, my soul, and my time, I’ve given. I’ve done things here that no one expected could be done. To be painted this way, I think is grossly inaccurate. I can’t get into parliamentary procedure or legal things here that’s for the board to do. Everything has to be done in public and rightly so. There shouldn’t be any behind the scenes things going on. I have a problem with that when people say you’re not transparent. If any of these issues is a problem we can study it with the board.

Q: Are you planning to cut the communications department staff, now that Bruce Roaden is going to be principal of the new Fifth Avenue Academy?

A: I know Mr. Ahmann has put things out there about cutting the communications department. I’m surprised he’s making these claims because I had already gone to the board with a list of cuts, including that the communications budget will be cut in half with only one person in that budget. There’s a lot that we want to do and it hasn’t been voted on yet and as soon as it is, I hope we can move forward.

Q: Does it make sense to put off any budget discussion until after City of Decatur decides its budget?

A: Each time we do this, we don’t know what the city is going to do. We’ve done our budgets typically in May. Our director of finance is in contact with finance people there in the city. We are listening to them and hearing what they have to say and try to adjust appropriately. We know where we stand in state funding and what we're proposing and how our fund balance is coming in. We have also budgeted conservatively. We’re not going to go for 100 percent of taxes, but 98 percent. If they come in at 99 percent, we have a cushion. We do that with state funds as well. We do have to have a budget passed in June. If the board decides they do not want to pass the budget they will have to make a special session and come back. After all this time and discussion we feel confident that what we were proposing, we feel we are fine. If you go back in time, when I got here, the budget millage rate was higher and I lowered it. I have not raised it for many years. But for the past two years or so with the opening of the new school, we’ve been talking about a millage increase. That’s why there was a taxpayer bill of rights meeting scheduled on June 6. We did not have a quorum. I don’t believe the board will vote on millage until July.  So we will have as much information as we need by then.