Agenda Item: "Sim School District"

Requested Action: Board authorization for Jerry Palmer and Nicholas Johnson (and any other interested Board Members, CAO personnel, and citizens) to proceed with the development of a spreadsheet containing the District’s proposed budget that will enable any interested parties meaningfully to participate in budget trade-off decisions.

If there is any way we can avoid, or minimize, the acrimony with disappointed special interest pleaders I think we’d all like to do it.

Not only is there no tested silver bullet solution, but my guess is that nothing we could ever even imagine doing would still all complaints.  However, I do think it may be possible to at least turn down the volume.

I will continue to research the literature, but I am not hopeful of finding much help from what the other 14,000 school boards have done.  If we go with this idea I think we may be the only school board ever to have done so.

So if any of you have any process solutions that are better than what I am about to propose I am more than anxious to hear them.

Moreover, not only am I not confident that this idea is possible to put together, I have no way of knowing whether, if it is possible, it will actually accomplish what we want.

What I do know is that it is not worth the time of any of us to explore it if there is not near-unanimous interest on the part of Board members in doing so.  If a majority of you is interested, I am willing to put time and effort into the experiment on behalf of all of us – and the community.  If a majority is somewhere between negative and apathetic, however, there is very little point in my doing anything more with it.  It’s not a "hobby" or "pet project" of mine; it’s an effort to be genuinely useful.  So if you all don’t think it is, that’s the end of it so far as I’m concerned.

I have described the idea as "Sim School District."  Susan Mims has described it much more directly as "put up or shut up."

Up to now, community budget input has taken the form of proposals for expenditures: smaller class size, all-day kindergarten, music programs, athletics, elementary school foreign language programs, or whatever.  Often these proposals don’t even come with estimates of cost.  Virtually never do they come with proposed sources of funding, e.g., what programs are to be eliminated to provide the funding from within a budget with severe restraints.

Having presented the merits of such programs to the Board – merits with which, for the most part, each of us is fully familiar – Board members are charged by the advocates with not having "listened" if we do not vote to do precisely what has been requested.

"Sim School District" is a way of saying to such advocates, in effect, "Thank you.  We agree.  That’s a wonderful program with many benefits to students.  Now come sit down at the table with us and let’s work out how we might move these numbers around to make it possible to fund what it is you want to do."  It’s not a put-off or put-down.  It’s a genuine offer to anyone who’s serious to try to work with her or him.

To modify the old line, "Having ‘Sim School District’ is never having to say you’re sorry."

"Sim School District" enables us to make it clear, up front, that while we’re happy to listen to anyone’s proposal, their presentation is of little or no help to us if they are not willing to work with us on the realities of budgeting.  Those who do work with us will be given the opportunity to have a meaningful impact on the budget.  Those who just want to make proposals and then walk away will not have much impact.

Sim School District is nothing more than my name for an Excel spreadsheet with our budget numbers on it.  It’s a spreadsheet that enables anyone to play "what if" games with the numbers.  No "what if" is too outrageous.  But neither is it to be feared.  The fact that someone puts a question to the spreadsheet doesn’t mean they are seriously proposing a particular policy or budget decision.  They are just asking, "what if"?

What if we hired at the bottom of our scale instead of the top?  What if we used proportionately more associates and fewer teachers?  What if principals, or guidance counselors, were in the classroom some of the time?  What would be the impact of such decisions on class size?  What if we doubled our expenditures on music – or athletics?  The questions are limited only by one’s imagination.

But the process brings an advocate very quickly to budget reality.  Every expenditure carries with it an "opportunity cost" – for everything we do there is something that can’t be done.

Is it possible to put such a spreadsheet together?  I think so, but of course I don’t know.  My assumption is that all the data one would want is available from the records now already maintained by Jerry Palmer, personnel, and the buildings.  The spreadsheet itself, and the "what if" parameters, could be designed by any number of persons in Iowa City, I think.  (I’m assuming pro bono participation, not District expenditures.)

If it proves possible, will it work?  Will advocates for specific programs either (a) play the "what if" games, or (b) if not, accept their lesser role in shaping the budget if they refuse to play?  I don’t know that either.

What I do know is that it seems to me we are now all riding down the same old conveyor belt toward the buzz saw that sliced you up in little pieces last year.  It is not a fate I welcome.  Sim School Board may be a workable alternative.  I'm willing to pursue it, but only if the Board as a whole supports the idea.

This agenda item requires each Board member to vote the idea up or down.  I am willing to accept the conclusion that a majority does not want to pursue it – for any one of a number of reasons.  What I want to avoid is that it falls between the cracks because of a failure to focus on it.