A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Red Devil Pride!

October 18, 2020 by Doug Masson 2 Comments

This post isn’t really about how I’d be a better school board member than anyone else. In fact, if anything, this reflects great accomplishments under the current school board. (Not that I’m necessarily looking to oust an incumbent — one of the incumbents is on the ballot but has since decided that he’d rather not serve another term.) It’s about what a strong school system we have and why I want to continue helping it to stay strong.

This week, there were two pretty remarkable stories showing the strength of our system. The first was an October 13, 2020, New York Times story about Cumberland Elementary.The story is about a firefly project Mrs. Samudio, a second grade teacher, worked on from 2015 through 2017 in conjunction with people from Purdue and the Bezos founded Blue Origin rocket company. One of her students asked her whether a firefly would light up in space. She posed the question to a professor she knew at Purdue who suggested that they didn’t have to guess, instead, they could do an experiment:

Following Dr. Collicott’s suggestion, Ms. Samudio’s children at Cumberland got to work, collaborating with Purdue students in Dr. Collicott’s classes.

“For the next two years, I had aeronautical engineers in my second-grade classroom teaching mini-lessons on basic principles of flight and propulsion as well as the basic principles of ‘firefly’ chemistry,” Ms. Samudio said.

On December 12, 2017, an apparatus that replicated the chemistry of how fireflies generate light went up in space. Dr. Collicot attended the launch, and two days later reported that, in fact, fireflies can glow in space.

The second was a NICHES school ranking for 2020 that put West Lafayette Community School Corporation as top in the state & twelfth in the nation, and its teachers as top in the state and number four in the nation. Now, you can pick at this ranking in a bunch of different ways: school rankings are largely proxies for socioeconomic status, West Lafayette benefits from a lot of educated parents, even highly ranked schools might be leaving kids behind. There is validity to all of that, but the fact remains that West Lafayette schools are accomplishing a lot notwithstanding the fact that they start with a lot of advantages. There plenty of school districts in the country with more money than us who are, nevertheless, below us in the rankings.

Even while we search for our problem areas and seek to make them better, we should not forget to take pride in the school system we’re building and give credit where it is due. Sometimes, I think folks are hesitant with praise – even where it’s appropriate – because they think that might breed complacency. But the flip side is that despair has a tendency to slip in if we don’t praise the praiseworthy. (“Nothing’s ever good enough. Why try?”)

We’re part of a very special school system in which we can take pride, and we should never take that for granted. If elected to the school board, I intend to remain cognizant of that fact, taking care to maintain what we have even as we seek to make improvements where we fall short. As the saying goes, “examine all things; hold fast to what is good.”

West Lafayette School Board: Quick Campaign Finance Report

October 16, 2020 by Doug Masson 5 Comments

Just a note in case anyone wants to know about the big money being spent on my School Board race. The campaign finance rules for school board state that you don’t have to file a report unless you receive more than $500 or spend more than $500. I’ve done neither. But, if someone wants to know the extent of my finances:

On the expenditure side, I’ve spent just under $165 on Facebook and Instagram ads.

My share of some signs showing all four of the WLEA endorsed candidates constitutes a “gift-in-kind” of $332.

My wife added the school board section onto my website which I believes falls under the category of “personal services of a volunteer who is not being compensated” and, therefore, not a contribution.

And, I used yard signs I had in my basement from 2016.

I’m a high roller.

West Lafayette School Board: Local Government Finance and Policy Options

October 12, 2020 by Doug Masson 6 Comments

One of the reasons I am asking folks to vote for me as a candidate in this West Lafayette School Board race is that I have some experience with local government finance. A school board’s policy options are tied to its funding options. This stuff is opaque (to put it charitably) and it takes awhile to get up to speed. Understanding the twists and turns of the state’s regulations on local government finance ends up being important not just because it helps you understand what the board can and can’t do, but also because it helps you explain the board’s choices to constituents who might otherwise find the school’s choices arbitrary or wrongheaded.

A subject that often seems to come up when money is tight has to do with funding building projects. It’s pretty common to see a citizen who doesn’t really understand the process (or a disingenuous anti-education legislator who probably does) respond to calls for increased funding for teacher pay by grousing about how schools are wasting money on “cathedrals.” (My first exposure to this argument was about twenty years ago when I lived in White County – someone was complaining about a new baseball field when the subject of having to let an assistant band director go was being discussed.) On the surface, it’s a pretty common sense argument. Don’t spend the money on “x.” Spend it on “y.”

The reason that argument falls apart has to do with state law. The tax rate that supports capital construction projects (i.e. buildings) is distinct from the funding sources for teacher pay and other operating expenses. This is further complicated by the maximum levy imposed by the State and the fact that local units of government have their tax rates tied together, in a sense, through the state imposed tax caps. More on that below, but the upshot is that reducing your tax rate for capital projects doesn’t mean that you’ll have lower taxes or more flexibility to spend money on non-capital expenses. It might just mean that another unit of local government gets more money from its tax rate.

(And, by the way, a quick note to acknowledge that just because I have a fair amount of background in this area, doesn’t mean my knowledge is anything like perfect. There are probably mistakes in this post. But my experience is usually good enough to allow me to separate the real issues from the non-issues. And I know when to go lean on people with expertise in the area: we’re fortunate enough to have Everybody’s Favorite Economist ™ in the district, a long-time CFO working for the corporation, outside contractors like Baker Tilly, or in my County work, our County Auditor.)

Looking at my 2019 tax statement for illustration, the tax rate attributable to the West Lafayette Community School Corporation was $1.2762 per $100 of assessed valuation. In 2019, the certified rate attributable to debt service was 0.5375, the rate attributable to operations was $0.3687, and the rate attributable to the referendum was 0.37. Add those all up, and you get the $1.2762 on my tax statement. That debt service amount crept up a little between 2015 and 2016 (from 0.5322 up to the 0.5375 where it’s been since) but it’s held pretty steady at around that rate as far back as I can see. That $0.5375 rate seems to generate in the neighborhood of $5 million per year. The rate has held steady despite the additional debt the school corporation* bonded for to fund the new construction at West Lafayette Intermediate School, improvements at Cumberland, and additions to the Jr./Sr. High School.

(*Technically the bonds were issued to the West Lafayette School Building Corporation. This is not some sort of arcane end-run around local government finance rules. This is routine practice for units of local government using bonds guaranteed by property taxes to fund capital improvements. In the case of schools, the procedures are set forth in IC 20-47-3. In the case of other units of local government, the procedures are set forth in IC 36-1-10. I believe there is some artifice here, but it’s not local or recent. It’s a legal fiction of long-standing (since the 1920s), used nationwide. With respect to Indiana, my understanding is that the State was scarred by its experience with the Indiana Mammoth Internal Improvement Act of 1836. The State defaulted on bonds related to those internal improvements in a big way, leading to adoption of Article 10, section 5, of Indiana’s 1851 Constitution which has a general prohibition on the State (and by extension political subdivisions of the State) incurring debt. However, as it turns out, it’s not terribly practical to fund long-term assets with cash on the barrel head, so these building corporations were devised as a way to create a bit of legal separation between the government and debt while still providing bond holders the security they need to lend money.)

So, back to our hypothetical citizen or legislator criticizing spending on facilities (and forgetting for the moment that adequate facilities are important to education).

Why not spend the debt service money on teachers instead of buildings?

The General Assembly says we can’t. IC 20-40-9-6 lists the uses of the debt service fund, and paying school operating expenses aren’t on the list.

If you spend less on debt service, won’t that let you lower the debt service tax rate and increase the operations tax rate?

No. The two aren’t really tied together under state law. Lowering the debt service rate won’t increase the amount available for the operations fund. That amount is capped by something called the maximum levy and generally that amount will increase each year based on the assessed value growth quotient — which is a multiplier calculated using the non-farm personal income growth for the previous six years. The growth quotient for 2021, based on the average income growth from 2013 to 2019, is 4.2%. For what it’s worth, due to COVID, there is a good chance that there will be some low or even negative personal income growth years baked into that formula for years to come, reducing the growth quotient and limiting the maximum levy for the operations fund.

If you spend less on debt service, won’t that at least reduce our overall taxes?

Probably not. In many cases, the effect will be to send more money to the City of West Lafayette or the County. Property taxes in Indiana are capped at 1% for residential property, 2% for rental and agricultural property, and 3% for commercial property. Any given parcel has taxes from a number of local units stacked on top of each other. Using the 2019 tax statement again for reference, the total tax rate on the property was $2.7603 for every $100 of assessed valuation. As I mentioned, $1.2762 of this was attributable to the school. The City, the County, the township and the library all added their rates on top of that. It’s not as easy as just multiplying that tax rate times assessed valuation because there are things like homestead deductions and the fact that the referendum tax rate doesn’t fall under the cap, but generally, that tax rate is going to take you over the tax cap for a lot of properties in the West Lafayette school district. When that happens, the taxpayer gets a “circuit breaker credit” which is deducted from all of the local units tax revenue. If WLCSC reduces its debt service tax rate, the total amount of the circuit breaker credit is reduced, generally to the benefit of the other taxing units. In other words, if the School reduces its debt service tax rate, the County and the City have a smaller amount of their tax revenue reduced by circuit breaker credits. So, the taxpayer pays the same amount of tax on the property, the school doesn’t have the money to use on capital projects, and the City and the County get a bigger piece of the pie.

Is the referendum tax rate used on debt service?

No. Legally, it can be (because referendum money is legally allowed to be used for any purpose on which the school can otherwise spend money), but for the West Lafayette schools, referendum money is not used for debt service. It’s used to supplement the education and operations funds. For 2020, there was a filing with the Department of Local Government Finance that created the impression that maybe the referendum money was being used for debt service. (In fact, the form showed $4.5 million used for debt service). But, this appears to be from some kind of glitch caused by how the school’s software communicated with the State’s Gateway software for financial filings. If you look at the same report for the debt service fund, it shows $6.5 million on debt service and lease rentals (these “leases” are from the building corporations we discussed above.) The school corporation simply isn’t spending $11 million per year on capital expenses.

If you look at the 2019 report for debt service it’s similar to the 2020 debt service report. Meanwhile, in 2019, the referendum fund shows nothing for debt or leases. Our bonds and leases for building construction are being paid from the debt service fund which, as we discussed above, can’t be used for non-capital expenses like paying teachers.

Was there some shuffling of referendum money between the education fund and the operations fund?

All right. Our hypothetical citizen or legislator isn’t asking this, but I wanted to mention that the General Assembly passed legislation saying that 85% of State money has to remain in the education fund with not more than 15% going to the operations fund. The education fund is to be spent on student instruction and learning (e.g. teachers). The operations fund is for non-instructional operating costs of a school (e.g. human resources, utilities, food service, and other non-classroom expenditures.) The referendum fund money can be used to supplement either or both of these. It used to be that the referendum money was allocated among both instructional and non-instructional uses so that the school could keep track of what would likely have to disappear if the referendum money ever dries up. Due to the State’s 85% rule, the school shifted more of its referendum money to operations so that less State money counted as operations. The substance didn’t change, but the school had to do a bit of rearranging to comply with statutory requirements.

So, the take away is that: a) debt service tax rate money can’t be used for teachers; b) our debt service tax rate is the same now as it was before the new construction; c) foregoing new construction would not have given us any flexibility to raise other money for teachers; d) foregoing new construction would not have reduced the tax bill for most residents; and e) referendum money was not used on the new buildings.

Anybody who has made it this far, thank you! This stuff is about as exciting as watching paint dry. My main point is that it’s useful for a school board member to have familiarity with this type of thing so that he or she can walk a constituent (or legislator!) through the issues and hopefully be able to identify which complaints are well-founded versus those that are based on a misconception. Then, hopefully, folks can focus their attention on the former without wasting too much time on the latter.

I believe my background will allow me to get up to speed as a school board member more quickly and be a productive part of the board. So, in conclusion, Vote Masson!

West Lafayette School Board: Who Else Should I Vote For?

October 8, 2020 by Doug Masson Leave a Comment

(General programming note for blog readers in the West Lafayette school district: I am a candidate in the 2020 West Lafayette School Board election. There are four seats open, and I would like to fill one of them. If you want to know more about my campaign, ask questions, request a yard sign, please go to https://masson.us/schoolboard.)

So, if you are in the West Lafayette School District, there are fifteen people on the ballot for four open spots on the school board. Who should you vote for? After a month of campaigning, my reflexive first response is “Vote Masson. Tell Your Friends!” I think I’ve made a decent case that I would be a good addition to the board. Among other things, I’ve demonstrated a commitment to the school that goes beyond running for school board, I have a legal background in municipal law, and I balance some board experience with a fresh perspective and energy from having been off the board for a few years.

My second response is that if you know a candidate and strongly believe their presence on the school board would make it better, vote for them. If that still doesn’t get you to four candidates, I’ll suggest that you “rely on the teachers.” In other words, the West Lafayette Education Association – the teacher’s union – has endorsed me, Amy Austin, Brad Marley, and Tom Schott.

Obviously, there is an element of self-interest in that I’m one of the WLEA endorsed candidates. But, if you have been part of the West Lafayette community, you know that our schools are excellent and a big part of this is attributable to our teachers. They have every interest in seeing that our schools remain outstanding; they interviewed the candidates; and they know the schools, what they need, and how they operate. Their endorsement should carry some weight — particularly if you’re in the dark on who the candidates are and what the school board does.

Brad and Tom have long experience on the Board. That shouldn’t be discounted. One of them said that it takes a full term to really understand the job, and I think that’s pretty accurate. I had two years on the board plus more than a decade practicing municipal government law, and I still had a fair amount to learn when my term ended in 2016. On top of experience, Brad’s financial background is something the school will need as the impact of COVID on municipal finance sinks in. Tom knows the school up and down, has great communication skills, and deep connections to Purdue.

Amy is, full disclosure, a close family friend. More significant to a prospective voter would be that she has put a lot of time and effort to working with the school. Those of you who have had students in the district in the last several years might recognize her as “Newsletter Amy” sending out parent council letters. Or maybe you’ve seen her on field trips, volunteering with the backpack program, working to supplement the school breakfast and lunch program when COVID caused some disruptions, organizing class parties, participating in the parent council, or doing any of the other countless things that show a dedication to the school. She’s also terribly smart, and her compassion is seemingly boundless.

Beyond those four, I’ve also come to know Melissa Prochnau reasonably well. If one of the four I’ve already mentioned isn’t your cup of tea for some reason, definitely give Melissa a look. She beat me by four votes in 2016. I’m not going to pretend that a narrow loss didn’t sting a little bit on a personal level, but I can’t say the school has been any worse off for it. I’m President of the West Lafayette Schools Education Foundation and, in that position, I’ve had the pleasure of working with Melissa who is one of the school board appointees to the WLSEF board. In addition, she has four years of experience from having been on the school board and is very active with the schools generally.

Brian Bittner is an incumbent on the board who is on the ballot but has made the decision to withdraw from campaigning. So, I think he’d agree that you shouldn’t vote for him.

As for the remaining nine candidates, I can’t say I know any of them very well if at all. I’m certainly not inclined to disparage any of them, their abilities, or their motives. I will say that I get the sense that the COVID reopening process created a lot of the energy that led to some of the school board runs.

I think the ultimate result of the school’s COVID plan has been pretty good under the circumstances. The initial plan suggested by the school board was met with some anxiety because, as I recall, it did not provide for a virtual option unless there was a health concern and did not mandate masks. The plan came out during the filing window for school board candidates. Communication about the plan and the planning process definitely could have been better, and the initial plan had its deficiencies. But that was never set in stone, and the COVID measures the school ultimately put in place (including virtual classes taught by West Side teachers and masks in the school) seem to be working. In the school’s defense, I think it’s important to note that it wasn’t working in a vacuum. Our knowledge of COVID itself has been a work in progress and the school had to work with or around other federal, state, and local decision makers. So, with respect to that initial plan, the school may be taking heat for issues that were beyond its control at the time.

In any event, I’d caution you not to take my characterization of these issues as complete or necessarily representative of any particular candidate. Check out their websites for more information. But, if you’re looking for my opinion: vote Masson, Austin, Marley, and Schott!

Public Schools and Community

October 2, 2020 by Doug Masson 1 Comment

I’ve written a number of times that I think public schools are important for reasons that are in addition to the education our kids receive. I usually say something like, “they turn us from a collection of individuals into a community.” I think this is true of traditional public schools generally, but maybe more so in the two school systems with which I have the most experience: West Lafayette and Richmond. Basically you have one school corporation for the city that pretty much everyone goes to. (Though, you can make a decent argument that the relevant community is “Tippecanoe County” and there are several different school systems.) In any event, the systems in West Lafayette & Richmond struck me as binding the community together more tightly than in places (like Ohio where I went to college) with high numbers of students going to private schools.

In the abstract, this sense of community comes from the age old tradition of a tribe banding together to provide for its young and, by extension, for its future. We all — whether we have kids or not — pay taxes into the system that are, in turn, used to build schools, pay teachers, run buses, and do everything else that goes into education. We do this because we all have a stake in the education of the community’s children. Back in 1846, Caleb Mills – the father of Indiana education – began his series of “Read, Circulate, Discuss” pamphlets which were ultimately instrumental in persuading the General Assembly to adopt a program of general education for the State. Part of his argument had to do with the benefit to the community at large. He argued that “the rich land-holder [is] interested, to the full amount of his property, in the intellectual and moral character of the community in which it is located” and that the value of the property is enhanced by “the intelligence and virtue,” and lessened by the “ignorance and vice of the surrounding neighborhood.” The merchant and the manufacturer benefit from operating in an “intelligent and virtuous” community rather than in one that is comprised of “ignorant and vicious” people. “We can better meet the expense of the proper education of the rising generation, than endure the consequences resulting from the neglect of it.” Self-interest aside, Mills also argued that the mere fact that we all would be paying for schools would cause us, whether we have children or not, to take an interest in them. In his second address published in 1847, Mills advocated:

Awaken the public mind, and concentrate it on the question, “Am I not interested in the proper education of all that are socially and politically connected with me?“ The bearings of such a question have not been duly considered. It needs to be discussed and examined. We are a shrewd people where dollars and cents are concerned. Many have never taken that view of their duty, and when it has been presented to them have frankly acknowledged that they have never thought of it in that light. Does not the Farmer derive as large a percent upon what he expends in the education of his children, as from any investment he can make of his funds? Does the amount which he pays to sustain a good school for the instruction of all the children in the district or township in which he lives, never find its way back again to him in the improved character of the community for intelligence, enterprise, and morals? Is not real estate in such a community more valuable, capital more productive, and enterprise more intelligent and successful? Would not the general thrift and prosperity caused by this intellectual and moral elevation, lighten public burdens, increase social enjoyments, enhance the value of property, multiply the facilities for its acquisition, and increase the security of its possession? Such cultivation could not fail to diminish pauperism and crime, lessen poverty and suffering, throw around the gardens, orchards, and the products of the field, an enclosure that would never be passed, improve the highways, and materially increase the substantial comforts and conveniences of the house, the farm, and the implements of husbandry.

All of that’s true, and I’m certainly not going to try to second guess Caleb Mills. But the way I experience the community created by our schools is a little more direct. For me, it’s also high-fiving the people next to me (or complaining together about a blown call) at the football and basketball games. It’s talking to neighbors while we sit in the yard watching the Homecoming Parade. Back when the kids were younger, it was chatting with other parents outside the school to walk the kids home and getting to know the younger siblings or maybe the dogs; driving to and from field trips with those other parents. It’s the band events, it’s watching the kids I coached in the rec leagues play on the high school soccer team. Hosting a bunch of my kids’ friends for movie night. Eating lo mein and strudel at “One Community, Many Cultures” after listening to kids rapping in French or playing a Spanish horn number. Being a practice judge with other parents for the “We the People” civics competition. Reading in the paper about your how your friend’s kid did at the volleyball match. Maybe a night at the theater watching the school play. And I know my experiences are just the tip of the iceberg. Before COVID, I was taken by how much the high school, in particular, was a hive of activity for something like 16 hours a day. Clearly there is way more going on than even the long list of things I was experiencing.

Seeing that kids get a solid education is obviously first and foremost on my mind when I think of the schools. And, the abstract public good of the type Mills talks about is vitally important. But schools also provide that “third place” where members of the community can get together, share experiences, and form a common bond. That makes West Lafayette a better place to live. If I am elected to the school board, I will be mindful of this aspect of our school and work to preserve and promote its value as a source of community.

On Being a Concerned Citizen (Revisited)

October 1, 2020 by Doug Masson Leave a Comment

Back in 2015, I offered some thoughts on Being a Concerned Citizen. I’m re-posting that below. It’s my sense that there is much more interest in government now than there was back then. A couple of notes: I sort of specifically excluded civil rights protesters from this post. That strikes me as a different dynamic than what I have in mind here which is less about dramatic change and more about participating in the day-to-day grind of government to keep it responsive to the citizenry.

Also, this is not about how the government committee should respond to the citizens. That’s perhaps a post for a different day — but generally speaking, the board should be communicative and responsive to the citizens on the one hand while, on the other hand, recognizing that the folks who show up at meetings or are most active at any given time don’t necessarily speak for the public at large. On the openness front, adherence to the Open Door Law and the Access to Public Records Act is very important. Their existence acts as a sort of “panopticon,” improving the behavior of governmental bodies even when those tools aren’t actually used. (The Panopticon was a prison designed by Jeremy Bentham on the principle that you could improve prisoner behavior with fewer guards if the prisoner knew the guard could be watching at any time — with the ODL and APRA, the citizen could take an interest at any time.)

That said, you want the meetings to be open without turning them into something like government-by-YouTube-comment-section. I slag on YouTube, but I’m not even sure if those comment sections are that bad anymore. Newspaper comment sections are maybe a better example. If you’ve been online some place that allows unrestricted commenting on controversial issues, you know what I mean. The loudest and most aggrieved commenters can tend to dominate the conversation driving out more casual participants who don’t need that kind of hassle. A committee meeting, like a Presidential debate, needs rules and a moderator willing to enforce them; otherwise, you might find that nothing useful is being accomplished.

But that’s on the government side. Like I said, this post was intended for the citizen side. Here is what I posted back in 2015:

Between my former work as a legislative services attorney and my current work as a county attorney with some other government work thrown into the mix at various times, I’ve attended a lot of public meetings over the past 20 years. Like, really a lot.

Mostly these are not attended by citizens and, for the most part, that’s more or less ok. There is a lot of routine business handled at these meetings by people who are good at what they do. For example, there’s really no call for John Q. Public to get involved with every drainage plan that gets reviewed when some business wants to add some parking spaces.

But, occasionally a concerned citizen or citizens will undertake a kind of watchdog role by trying to come to every meeting of a government body or all of those concerning a particular topic. This can be beneficial and is certainly the citizen’s right. But, I’ve noticed that some approaches are more effective than others. The overarching rule for being an effective concerned citizen is “don’t be a jerk.” Now, I’m not talking here about people whose goal is to effect far reaching social change — civil rights protesters and the like. That’s above my pay grade, and I’m not presuming to know what is effective in that context. I’m thinking more of the good government watchdog who wants to ensure that local decision makers are acting in the best interest of the public.

The most effective people I’ve seen working for that purpose are clear, direct, brief, and polite. They aren’t shy about speaking up when they don’t like things, but they don’t belabor the point, don’t wander off topic, recognize the scope and limits of the public body they’re attending, and avoid delusions of grandeur or that they’re participating in some Manichean battle of good versus evil (where their place on the side of good is never in doubt.)

These individuals attend consistently and, often, don’t have to speak at the meeting. Before and after the meeting, they are willing and able to chat with the public officials in an amiable, friendly way, even if they disagree with the official’s politics. They don’t always get their way. In fact, very often they don’t get their way. But, public policy isn’t binary — decisions are usually made on a spectrum. And, in the back of the public official’s mind — it seems to me — the official will maybe ratchet the policy a notch or two just because they know they’ll get some push back from a citizen whose position they’ve come to know, understand, and perhaps respect to some degree — even if the official will never necessarily agree with that position or frame of reference.

Contrast this with the belligerent bellyacher. This person will never be happy and often treats the public official rudely. Public life being what it is, officials usually don’t have thin skin and can usually endure some level of criticism. But, if you don’t agree with the citizen’s policy views in the first place, the citizen is never going to be happy, and he or she treats you badly besides, what is the upside to accommodating such a person? Mostly the rest of the public will find such a person off-putting in any case, so there is likely no political downside to simply enduring that citizen as best you can and then moving ahead without regard to that individual’s preferences.

Somewhere in the middle you have the people who are not up to speed on the purpose or the powers of the public body in question. A technical planning board isn’t going to be able to do much when the plans are in order but a citizen complains, not about the plans, but — for example — the social value of the business submitting the plan. Or maybe they’ll complain about federal policy to the local government officials. Or they’ll spend a great deal of time talking about extraneous information. These citizens aren’t disagreeable. In fact, they often present very sympathetic stories. But, ultimately, they are not effective because, even where the policymaker wants to help them, there is simply nothing that can be done for them in the context of whatever the public body is designed to consider.

So, be nice, be persistent, be focused, and be concise. Government generally benefits when citizens can engage with it in this fashion.

West Lafayette Schools Strategic Plan

September 27, 2020 by Doug Masson 11 Comments

One of the things that I would like to do if elected as a school board member is to focus on implementation of the school corporation’s strategic plan. My involvement with this document started in the middle of 2018 as part of the strategic planning committee which made recommendations for updating the mission statement, statements of belief, objectives, and strategies. That committee consisted of approximately 30 administrators, educators, and community members such as myself. Later, throughout 2019, the “Re-imagining West Lafayette School Corporation” committee (about 25 people this time) followed up on the work of the strategic planning committee by drafting action plans for the strategies. I served on this committee as well.

The strategic plan and action plans were recommended to the School Board which adopted them in February 2020, right before COVID upended everyone’s plans. The dates for various milestones were always fairly speculative and now they’re going to be delayed further, but that’s not critical as long as the corporation continues to make the sort of improvements contemplated by the strategic plan. The Mission Statement is high minded and ambitious:

Our mission is to engage students in a world-class educational experience that prepares them to be well-rounded, ethical, innovative, creative, productive, and adaptive citizens who shape our global society.

It’s very West Side in its scope. We’re not just preparing students for survival or getting them a degree or a vocation. We’re preparing them to live lives with meaning. This mission informed the Statement of Beliefs:

We Believe:

Our students are our foremost priority.
Highly effective faculty and staff are critical to our success.
Parenting and family support are fundamental to successful educational outcomes.
Public education is a shared resource and responsibility that defines and unites our community.
Student engagement in learning leads to higher achievement.
Academic excellence is the hallmark of our school corporation.
Public education’s primary purpose is to develop educated citizens.
Children deserve an equal opportunity to achieve their highest potential.
There is inherent worth and dignity in every person.
Students learn in different ways.
Accountability is critical to the success of our school corporation.
Involvement in extracurricular activities enhances the educational experience.
School safety is essential.
Public education contributes to the development of productive, ethical, adaptive, and healthy citizens.

The Statement of Beliefs (along with the Mission Statement) further informed the objectives, strategies, and action plans. I won’t belabor the whole document, but two points of emphasis which received particular attention above and beyond what they had received in the prior strategic plan were the ideas that we wanted a sense of ethics to inform our students, and we wanted to remove or at least minimize barriers to learning related to a student’s socioeconomic status.

With respect to the question of ethics, the committee grappled with the concept but did not settle with any precision on what that term meant. Philosophical considerations of ethics can and does form the basis of entire lifetimes of study. At the broadest level, however, the committee wanted to emphasize that our educational system should not just be teaching facts and figures. It should be giving students the background they need to become good citizens, and lead lives with value to themselves, their families, and their communities. One of the action items will be to form a committee that will focus more directly on defining a corporation-wide definition of what it means to be “ethical,” provide professional development to help staff and parents understand what an “ethical K-12 education” looks like, and create awareness of the concept for our students.

With respect to socioeconomic concerns, a world-class educational system doesn’t just mean a few of your students are among the best and the brightest. It means that you are consistently providing all of your students with a high quality education. And, if out-sized individual achievement is what a parent wants for their particular student, the fact remains that if all students are starting from a high base line, more of them are going to reach the highest levels of achievement (however you want that defined.) The Corporation will, among other things, conduct research to determine best practices from other high achieving school districts for ensuring that socioeconomic status does not form a barrier to education and collect data from our own district to determine what needs we are not meeting.

Those two items are just the tip of the iceberg to some extent. There is a lot in the way of studying, data collection, and fund raising to be done. We want to continue learning from school systems in other parts of the country and other parts of the world so we can learn from their successes. We want to enhance our early childhood education offerings. We want to identify sustainable short term and long term funding models. We want to identify any current sources of waste, grant opportunities, and areas where we can leverage relationships with Purdue and other community partners. If you take a look at the strategic plan, you’ll see there is a lot we want to do.

This is a big undertaking and, chances are, there will be a lot remaining to be done when it comes time to draft the next strategic plan. But, that’s not really a problem. Setting high aspirations will help us do great things even if we don’t quite hit the target. As a school board candidate, hoping to become a member of the board at this next election, I would love to be part of moving this process along.

West Lafayette Education Association Endorsement

September 24, 2020 by Doug Masson Leave a Comment

I am happy to announce that I am one of the four candidates for the West Lafayette School Board who has been endorsed by the West Lafayette Education Association. I think teachers are the backbone of our education system, so having their support is extremely gratifying. As part of its endorsement process, the WLEA sent out a questionnaire to the candidates and then interviewed us as part of a process with the League of Women Voters. (With 15 candidates, that’s no small investment of time; even if not all of the candidates sought the WLEA endorsement.)

I may have started with a bit of an edge over some of the other candidates inasmuch as I’m a known quantity to the members. Obviously, I was on the school board for a couple of years. But I’d say I really got to know the union members after I lost in the 2016 election. They were instrumental in working for passage of the school referendum in 2017. I walked door-to-door with several members over the weeks of canvassing West Lafayette for support. Knocking on doors with someone is a great way to get to know them! There were also many teachers involved with the school strategic plan during the 2018-2019 process, and I had the good fortune of learning from and brainstorming with a number of them as we broke into work groups as part of the planning process. Additionally, I’ve offered my full-throated support for teachers on my blog over the years. Probably the entry that has received the widest circulation was the post I wrote in support of Red for Ed entitled “Some thoughts on Red for Ed, Caleb Mills, and Indiana’s School Policies.” Here’s a sample:

At root, there is a lack of appreciation as to what a world-class educational system provides and possibly a lack of ambition by policymakers. Can we afford one? We can’t afford not to have one. Opportunity is slipping away from Hoosiers because we’re allowing our foundation to erode. The high stakes testing and privatization approach that have been in place for the better part of a generation have put us in a downward spiral. Teachers have been scapegoats and their salaries have remained mostly stagnant as their burdens have grown.

When it comes to education, we are too often shrewd with our pennies but foolish with our dollars. This is an investment.

It bears mentioning that this was a post directed to state policymakers. I recognize that the power of a local school board is very much circumscribed by state law. Even in a community like West Lafayette that is very supportive of its schools, there are significant limits on funding. If elected as a school board member, I will work to make teacher compensation a priority but we will have to work within fiscal constraints and recognize that the school has other needs as well. I expect that the relationships I’ve made with the teachers outside of the school board will help on both sides of these negotiations. Because we know each other, we’ll all recognize that each party is advocating in good faith on behalf of the constituents they represent. Hopefully that will result in an amicable relationship that’s in the best interest of the school, the students, the teachers, and the community.

But, one step at a time. The first step would be to get elected. We have great teachers in West Lafayette, and I’m honored by their endorsement.

Vote 411 Guide – School Board Responses

September 23, 2020 by Doug Masson Leave a Comment

Vote Masson, tell your friends!

The League of Women Voters are putting together a “Vote 411” guide for candidates. They ask a few questions, but it turns out the responses are limited to 1,000 characters. I thought I’d put the full responses here. My 411 responses have been shortened and edited a bit to fit the 1,000 character limit. (As always, if you want to know more about my school board campaign, go to http://masson.us/schoolboard.)

The questions:

Why are you running for the school board?

I’m running because I think traditional public schools are critical, not just to the students they educate but also to the communities they serve. Our kids need a world-class education so they can compete as workers, contribute as citizens, and thrive as people. The school also serves as focal point for West Lafayette that knits our community together.

I believe I have a skill set and a temperament that would make me a good Board member. I have past school board experience but have been off the board for the past four years, balancing experience with fresh perspective and energy. Additionally, I have a background in municipal law and have worked on and with community boards of various kinds which I think will assist me in contributing to the School Board.

I served on the School Board in 2015 and 2016 and have served on the West Lafayette Schools Education Foundation since 2018 (as its President since 2019). The Foundation is a non-profit corporation dedicated to supporting the mission of the schools. Among other things, it helps fund the Backpack Program, conducts alumni outreach, provides scholarship support, provides teacher grants, and has raised approximately $1.6 million in support of school capital projects.

From 2017 to the present, I have been a citizen participant on the school corporation’s policy review committee, working with current board members to conduct a decennial review of the School Corporation policies and make recommendations to the School Board on policy revisions and updates. Part of the update process was making the policies digital and searchable.

In 2017, I was also an active participant in the Friends of West Lafayette Schools effort to extend the property tax referendum, knocking on doors and educating the public on the need for the referendum and how it would impact their taxes. That effort was successful and the measure passed with resounding community support.

In 2018 and 2019, I participated on the Reimagining West Lafayette Schools Committee which made recommendations to the Board for updating the school’s strategic plan and action items for implementing that plan.

In 2019, I drafted a taxpayer petition in support of West Lafayette’s challenge to the charter school legislation that would potentially allow a charter school to acquire WLCSC’s six million dollar Happy Hollow facility for $1.

As an attorney with a practice devoted to municipal law and past employment with the General Assembly, I have a legal background that gives me experience with much of the regulatory framework in which the school operates. For example, I help the County navigate issues concerning personnel, local government finance, public record and open door law requirements, Constitutional concerns, legislative developments, and a variety of other issues. As the County Attorney, I represent a big organization with a number of elected officials who have independent decision-making authority and do not always agree. That has given me an ability to help people find common ground, and I’ve had reasonably good success at avoiding the types of personality conflicts that sometimes hinder compromise.

What in your view is the current school board doing right in its guidance of the district during the Covid 19 pandemic? What are your recommendations?

The School Board is remaining flexible and adapting to the situation as it develops. I think the school is handling COVID about as well as it can. I am the parent of two students in the West Lafayette schools. One is taking classes in-person and one is taking classes virtually. I think both of my kids have made the correct decision for themselves.

I would have preferred a steadier line of communication concerning the COVID re-opening. But, ultimately, I think the schools were in a fairly impossible situation in terms of decision making: there is a lot we don’t know about COVID, and it’s difficult to know how to properly balance the risks of COVID against such things as the impact of closing schools or limiting in-person teaching. Furthermore, the schools were at the mercy of decisions made, made slowly, changed, or not made at all by others at the federal, state, and local levels. It is my understanding that a lot of administrators, educators, and community members worked long hours coming up with a workable approach. That said, parents of students were understandably anxious and concerned about what and how decisions were being made. A consistent line of communication letting parents know more details about the planning process, and the specific challenges school decision-makers were facing might have provided reassurance and more insight into the reasons for choosing to act or not act in a certain fashion.

The COVID emergency will eventually pass, and the School Board needs to retain a broad enough focus that, while keeping the kids and the community as safe as possible from COVID, the schools retain the ability to educate students while the pandemic is ongoing and to bounce back as rapidly as possible when the threat begins to abate.

What safety and security issues should the school district be addressing?

We are fortunate enough to live in a district where the risks from external security threats are relatively low. I think our current security infrastructure is probably adequate to address those threats. There is, however, the potential for conflict arising out of interactions among students with a wide range of social, emotional, academic, and behavioral needs. I believe students can enjoy a healthier, happier, safer school experience if the school more deliberately looks to implement a multi-tiered approach to supports and interventions for the students.

In particular, I would like to see the School move forward on the part of its strategic plan which addresses establishment of a multi-tiered system of support. Tier one is directed to all students and is dedicated to creating an academically, behaviorally, and emotionally supportive school wide atmosphere. Among other things, it would consist of frequent, positive interactions that establish relationships between staff and students and build community within the school while setting clear expectations, reinforcing positive behaviors, and redirecting negative behaviors. The tier one engagements also help identify kids who might need more focused support. The additional tiers involve similar goals but with the smaller number of kids who need more attention. Tier two involves smaller groups with brief interactions designed to provide those supports, interventions, and strategies. And tier three involves individualized supports with the potential for providing help from outside third parties to those students who might need it.

By providing kids with the academic, behavioral, and emotional supports they need, preferably before conflicts arise, the likelihood of safety and security concerns decline.

If elected what are the most pressing issues you want to address during your first or next year of service?

We need to begin preparations for renewing the referendum tax rate. While the current rate will remain in effect for several more years, its preservation is critical to the health and success of our schools. We will need to analyze our use of the funds to make sure we are managing the revenue responsibly, then educate the public so it can be confident in the need for the tax rate. As part of this process, we will need to determine the proper renewal rate to request, ensure that the public question is on the ballot, and mobilize supporters to vote in favor.

I would like to see work continue on implementation of the recently adopted strategic plan. The plan has broad goals such as providing a world-class education to all students, and developing and maintaining a viable funding plan. Strategies identified for implementing those goals involve such things as reviewing the systems that have been successful in other parts of the world; implementing those aspects that are within the school’s control and lobbying the State or other entities with respect to those aspects that are outside of the school’s control. The School Corporation would also seek to identify or otherwise reduce barriers to education for low socioeconomic status, “at risk,” or other students who might face challenges that may not be well-addressed under our current system. One of the end goals is to ensure that all students at West Side consistently develop the attributes for becoming “well-rounded, ethical, innovative, creative, productive, and adaptive citizens.”

I would like to see planning for the future of Happy Hollow. The most likely use seems to be as an early childhood education center. The school needs to continue its efforts toward eliminating the risk posed by the State’s mandate that the facility be made available to a charter school operator for $1. In addition, I would urge a feasibility study that analyzes the costs of renovation, the market demand for early childhood education in West Lafayette, the benefits such a facility could provide to the community, the concerns of stakeholders, and the potential for revenue to offset the costs of renovation and providing early childhood education services.

I believe COVID will have a significant financial impact on our schools. Because of how the state budget process works, I expect that impact to be at its most acute in fiscal years 2022 and 2023. We should begin preparations for that crunch by looking for ways to maintain our cash reserves, by mobilizing the public to lobby the legislature to preserve school funding, and by looking for additional sources of revenue. When the tough choices come, we should recognize that teachers are the backbone of the school corporation and prioritize teacher retention and preserving their compensation.

Re-Post: State Impact on High School Career and Technical Training

September 22, 2020 by Doug Masson 7 Comments

As I’m in the middle of my campaign for West Lafayette school board, I’m going through some of my older posts on education. This one from July 2017 remains relevant:

Peter Balonon-Rosen, writing for State Impact Indiana has a good article on career and technical training initiatives in Indiana schools:

A new state law could allow job training programs to replace other high school graduation requirements. The law requires the State Board of Education to develop new pathways to high school completion.

It comes just as job training in Indiana high schools has taken on a new life — and new name.

“I think there’s a negative perception associated with the term ‘vocational training,’” Deuberry says. “Instead it is kind of like job training program. It’s so much bigger.”

. . .

Career and technical education programs are growing across Indiana. Today, students learn skills from welding to 3D printing to cooking – not just shop class skills, as was common in the past.

This is probably a good concept if done well but subject to abuse if done poorly. (Not very insightful: you could probably say that about almost literally any initiative.) Earlier in the article, Balonon-Rosen mentions that policymakers have struggled with whether education should be about getting kids ready for college or for the workforce. Molly Deuberry, speaking for the Department of Education, says “both.” And that’s correct as far as it goes, but I cringed a little at the idea of “college” being the counterpart to “workforce” because you run into the same question in college. Is that just advanced vocational training?

The larger question, in my mind, is whether you are teaching the student to be a worker or teaching the student to be a person. The ability to make a living is a big part of what is going to make you a productive, happy, fully developed citizen and human. But, it’s obviously not the only thing. Schools have to focus on vocational capabilities as a significant part of what will make a student a good person and a citizen who will improve the community. College preparation is not necessarily the path to excellence in those non-vocational areas of life.

But, I’m straying a bit from the point. When I was a kid, it seemed like vocational classes were a place where the troublemakers were shunted off. As I walked the hallways, I saw lots of rough kids through the doors of shop rooms that I never set foot in. The danger is that these vocational classes won’t be used so much as an alternate route for a fully developed education as storage space for “troublemakers.”

But it definitely doesn’t have to be that way, and from the article it sounds like the aspiration of the career and technical training initiatives is to recognize that college isn’t for everyone. (And, as I say this, I’m extremely wary of sounding like Judge Smails in Caddyshack when he tells Danny, “the world needs ditch diggers too.”) A strong career and technical education path was one of the recommendations of the NCSL report on how to build a world-class educational system after the study group reviewed a number of other educational systems around the world. As I put it in a blog post from last year:

Develop a Career and Technical Education path for those students preferring more of an applied education rather than a more academic approach. This shouldn’t be an educational backwater like so many vocational programs. It should be geared to boosting the national economy and providing a higher standard of living for a broader base of the population.