Live Blog From The Briefing 9-Apr-09

It's up! The Dell agreement...

It's 11:49 and there are speakers pleading for the Board not to shut down the DISD Learning Centers.

The big item, though, is the $80 million dollar question around the Dell computer leasing contract.

When we walked in, we were met by Jon Dahlander who explained that the whole thing was a big mistake.

Actually, according to Jon, District I.T. boss Patricia Viramontes caught the "mistake" but it was too late to correct it because of State open meetings laws.

So, sadly, they have to proceed forward with the erroneous written document which was actually noticed by Patricia but couldn't be corrected.

Think the Board will buy it?

12:40 and the Board is back in session. Superintendent Michael Hinojosa is talking about his "Re-Entry Plan." This is an evaluation of where the District is, and where it is headed.

Hinojosa met with influential members throughout the community. He also met with others, like me, who aren't as influential!

Carla Ranger is asking who all he met with.

12:53

The discussion has gone into how people perceive the school board at community meetings.

Jerome Garza noted that while people were commenting on what is good and bad in the District, that not once was the board mentioned.

Carla Ranger noted this too, and offered up that perhaps the Board is not meeting its responsibility to the community.

Ron Price indicated that sometimes the Board seemed more like a "rubber stamp."

1:05

We're on to the Education Briefing and talking about the contingency plan for AU-3 (academically unacceptable for the 3rd year) campuses. Donna Micheaux and Leslie Williams are on the hotseat.

Good news. The District has gotten an extension on its deadline to have a plan in to TEA. It has been extended from May 15 to November 15.

So the heat's off for the moment.

There's more discussion about the plan.

2:00 - Is there a Stealth RIF going on?

Apparently there have been many teachers who received letters of reassignment. However, several principals have apparently begun complaining that teachers are actually being released.

The Board called Col. Olson, H.R. Director for DISD, to the table and asked about it. Olson assured board members that teachers were not being fired and that letters the teachers received said as much.

"If all the schools are overstaffed," asked Ron Price, "where are all the people going?"

"The numbers just don't add up Jack."

4:20 - Quick update. Theyre slogging through policies. Still not to the interesting stuff yet.

7:00 - Yeah, we're still here. They've gone through the Policy Breafing and moved on to the Business Briefing. The sticky point: "Disscussion of the reallocation of general operating funds currently allocated to learning centers, vanguards, academies and magnet campuses in order to improve funding allocation equity of district campuses."

Translation: taking the money away and spreading it around to keep from losing over $100M in Title 1 funds. The problem is that federal law specifies staffing levels at comparable campuses based on grade levels and enrollement. Many of the program schools are staffed at a higher level.

When you start moving money around, you begin to impact the program. I think I'm going to get my sleeping bag.

7:40

Patricia Viramontes is up explaining the agreement with Dell.

She's explaining how the lease agreement works, and it needs to be extended from 3 years to 5 years. It won't cost anything more.

Trustees will get a corrected/valid document in their packets tomorrow.

We, on the other hand, have filed an open records request to examine this whole issue in detail.

"Why do we lease versus purchase computers," asked Leigh Ann Ellis.

Patricia is expounding on the virtues of leasing versus purchasing. She's focusing on the cycle of technology (called a "refresh cycle"). One important issue that she's leaving out is that leasing costs more than purchasing.

We're really looking forward to getting this information. Could the District's CIO be making a novice mistake?

All this and more, later! Oh, by the way, we're going to publish what we have to go through to get these records from the District.