An open letter to UASD Board members Heather Young-Cover, Marya Djalal, Loren Lustig, Tricia Plank, and Neil Weigle

School boards provide oversight and governance to school districts.  They do so by: (1) supporting the mission and evaluating progress toward goals,(2) providing responsible fiscal oversight, (3) establishing and maintaining district policies, (4) hiring, oversight and evaluating the superintendent and (5) serving as community leaders and advocates.  Boards have no management functions.  None.

Jan E. Tighe, a retired US Navy Vice Admiral, sits on the board of General Motors (GM) Corporation.  Her professional life has been spent in Information Technology not building cars.  As a result, she does not manage any of the various aspects of building and selling cars.  She provides oversight and governance to the executives of GM.

Last December the Upper Adams School District (UASD) board experienced a majority turnover.  You five constitute the new members and have routinely confused oversight and governance with management.

 Here are some examples of that:

• You presented a policy in near final form (a management function) instead of providing the Superintendent your desired changes in broad strokes (a governance function)
• You made a curriculum presentation (a management function) instead of providing the Superintendent your thoughts on curriculum changes (a governance function)
• Even before taking office and with no statutory authority, you approached a law firm (a management function) rather than advising the Superintendent of your desire to change or augment existing legal representation (a governance function)
• You continuously objected over several board meetings to extremely minor budget issues totaling about $12,000 in a $36M budget, appearing more interested in your own financial agenda rather than providing actual fiscal oversight.  This was the equivalent of laboring over a $20 tip versus a $20.03 tip on a $100 tab … and taking 2 hours to decide

These few examples demonstrate your collective efforts were focused not on oversight and governance but on something approaching harassment of district administrators, resulting in unnecessary delays and a constant needling of well-intentioned people.

Now, as a direct result of your actions UASD is losing a dedicated leader and manager.  People come and go in organizations … it’s in the nature of things … but you, the majority, have hastened this day and if truth be known rejoice in it.  But not me.

   Here are two examples of the leadership the district is losing:

• AP Courses
  • Prior to Dr. Doll’s arrival the district had no AP courses.  Now there is a vibrant AP program that challenges our best students and places them in good standing with their fellow high school students throughout the county and beyond.  You may become aware of the worth of these AP course should your children apply to post-secondary education.
• Financial Challenges
  • In the 13 years before he was Superintendent the district averaged an annual tax increase of just over 4% and never had a zero-tax increase year.  In the 13 years of his service the annual average dropped by half to just over 2%, with 4 of the last 5 years being 0%.  Also, the district now has over $3M reserved for known future expenditures with an additional $2.5M recently recommended to be added to that sum, all of which mitigate future tax increases.

The public should make no mistake, you have sped up the arrival of this day when UASD loses a gifted manager, servant leader and dedicated community advocate in the middle of a school year.  Finding a replacement will be time consuming and expensive.  Cost, however, has been described as irrelevant.  Recently Mrs. Djalal stated publicly that if something costs it just costs.  Of course, she was talking about Other People’s Money (OPM) … ours. 

Your inexperience is understandable, however, as you are all new to board life until one considers you attended training mandated by the General Assembly and provided by PSBA.  Now your inexperience has morphed into a serious liability.  That liability and your constant badgering over a wide range of topics is a significant factor in Dr. Doll’s departure

Your collective disfunction is changing the district from a well-functioning organization to one of constant chaos, which will eventually affect students.  Your inability to work effectively with administrators and the rest of the board to enact change you desire, a clear governance function, is a stain on your reputations and reinforces the assertion that you do not understand and refuse to learn your responsibilities. 

Your demonstrated ability to get elected is only surpassed by your manifest failure to understand what boards are supposed to do.

Voters of Upper Adams should take notice of your refusal to carry out your prescribed duties as board members in favor of trying to manage something you appear to little understand, and take appropriate action at the ballot box.