Blogging the Nov. 6 Lancaster School Board meeting

1. Lancaster HS has six assistant principals plus one associate?? If you get rid of about $125,000 in salary plus benefits of two assistants, Orchestra, Culinary Arts and other programs actually could be fully funded, not just what Lewis claims is full funding. My first two years of high school, I was in a high school the same size that had a principal and three, maybe only two, assistants.

2. Why would developers give 10 acres for free? Lewis said City Manager Jim Landon was leaning on developers to try to get them to do that, to get the district free land for additional elementary school sites.

Well, let’s do some math on this issue.

Let’s say you build an average $180,000 house on a third-acre site. On 10 acres, that’s $5.4 million. If the developer clears 10 percent, that’s $540,000. Let’s say the developer has 50 acres of land, besides these 10 acres. He or she will have to make an extra $3,600 per site on those remaining houses to break even. Now, the two dozen or so houses closest to the school should have no problem doing that, or better. But houses three or four blocks away probably will have minimal change in values. Let’s say the 25 closest houses bump $8,000 in value. That’s $200,000. Let’s say the next 50 bump $4,000, for another $200,000. That means the 75 remaining houses have to bump a total of $140,000, or nearly $2,000 per house, for the developer to break even. I don’t think that’s likely. Of course, I’ve never been a homeowner, and I grew up in church-owned housing, so my dad never had to face buying a house while I was around, either.

In any case, is Landon going to guarantee developers they will break even, or the city will make good the difference? I’m sure his good friend Steve Topletz is hip with this idea.

3. Lewis claims the district owns the Ag Barn site on Sunny Meadows, as a possible district-owned location for another northside high school. No, the district doesn’t, unless there’s some reverse deal in which the district did NOT donate that land to the city as swap-out for the new high school land, or the city donated it back. I’m not saying that that wouldn’t be a bad place for another elementary, but…

4. Doing neighborhood walks since Sept. 2003? Yes, but you’ve been selling three bonds as part of that, right?

5. Lewis actually is delaying International Baccalaureate approval for the high school by one year. I agree with delaying it, but I’m shocked that Lewis would actually pause and take stock.

6. Bible-story based leadership training? Can we talk about killing the powers that be with the jawbone of an ass? Or, to quote Romans, as Lewis likes to do, “Bless those who curse you,” if you are indeed being cursed? Of course, even that can be spun, to say, “Look at me, I’m blessing them!”

The above isn’t meant to be snarky, it’s serious.

I’m leery of Success/Prosperty Gospel ideas in general. I’m very leery of them being used as a management “bible” on how to run a business, whether public, a government, or in the private sector.

And, since this is public sector, it’s waving all sorts of First Amendment red flags to me.

7. It’s nice to throw others under the bus while waving your hands in the air and claim you’re not at the wheel.

8. Am I old enough to talk about the “good old days”? I’m glad I wasn’t in schools that had such a blizzard of tests.

9. Talking to the Melchers about getting open records from the district administration. Granted, state rules on financial filings can be convoluted. But, if the district has blown something, just admit it, and say, “let’s work on it.” Say, “let us contact our lawyers, not to stonewall, but to see what we need to do.” I personally don’t believe there’s any criminal intent. Beyond not being fully competent on the issue, I believe Lewis and staff have concerns about loss of face. Hey, it’s not a lost art. I sometimes succumb to that temptation myself. And, I seem to be getting more aware of doing that.

10. Lewis talks about incentive plans for teachers, from private businesses in the area. They sound great, and I don’t mean to deny that teachers shouldn’t be adequately compensated, but I’m sure people in other jobs would like to have that level of effort put out for them. (Don’t shoot me, any teachers who are reading!)

11. Let this not be understood as me doubting Lewis’ sincerity on improving school campuses in general and the scholarship of individual students. But, it gets back to concerns I’ve expressed earlier about perhaps biting off more than he can chew.

Take International Baccalaureate. Do other schools adopt it while trying to get large bond programs passed, then administered, at the same time? Do other schools adopt it while still scrambling to have accredited teachers in all classrooms?