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Resignation of Bruce Chambers from GVSB - One Parent's Perspective

RE: Resignation of School Board Director Bruce Chambers -- One parent's perspective


RE: 

-- One parent's perspective 


Dear Letters Editor:

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Thank you for your article re: the unexpected resignation of Bruce Chambers.  I had the pleasure of working closely with Mr. Chambers and a handful of other concerned parents, taxpayers and community leaders in forming a bi-partisan group known as Great Valley Stakeholders.  Many people have strong feelings one way or the other about Mr. Chambers.  These are mine. 


In the role of "outlier" 

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Bruce Chambers might best be described as Great Valley's "outlier", an exceptional individual who does things out of the ordinary.   Long before anyone had heard of Scott Walker, the Governor of Wisconsin, who challenged the concept of collective bargaining rights, lavish pensions for government workers and costly health care costs for school district employees,  Bruce Chambers had already begun delving into many of the problems in Great Valley School District that were causing SAT scores to remain flat while local property taxes were going up (60% in less then 10 years). 

While some folks blamed the shortcomings on then Superintendent Rita Jones and her autocratic style, many of us in GV Stakeholders came to the conclusion the problem lay in the fact that Great Valley had a weak school board that was not fiscally responsible, lacked independence from Jones and were failing to set any kind of measurable goals or objectives for the superintendent, staff or students in GVSD.

Even before he ran for School Board Director, Mr. Chambers used his sharp financial skills and expertise as a former government and insurance industry investigator to analyze and then upset the status quo in Great Valley School District.  He challenged long held ways of doing things -- including academic, operational and fiscal procedures that were established by the former superintendent.

Great Valley's School Board was adrift in 2007. I remember sitting through a couple of long school board meetings (prior to Mr. Chamber's election) when Superintendent Jones refused to compare GV's flat academic performance against the "best practices" of other higher performing local school districts because it might hurt a few students' feelings.  While many parents pushed for higher academic standards, Jones was more interested in touting the implementation of a new "school messenger system" as a major accomplishment of her administration. 

Under Jones, the school board members had a practice of sitting quietly and watching as the superintendent led the meetings, arbitrarily set the annual operating budget and tax increases and paraded administrators through to talk about "tasks" they were working on rather than academic goals and objectives. 

While still a member of the public (not a board member), Mr. Chambers began pointing out the major issues that needed to be addressed and corrected by the school board -- i.e. lack of transparency, lack of fiscal responsibility, lack of communication with the public and perhaps most important the lack of measurable goals for both staff and students. 


Facing financial crisis - tighten belts or raise taxes?

Mr. Chambers was the first to ring the alarm bell that the District would have to either tighten its belt to cover the pension crisis (which is now adding an additional $1.5 million per year to GV's budget from 2012-2018), cut student activities and/or programming or raise taxes.   He also pointed out that the "Early Bird Teachers' Contract" was unsustainable and would eventually result in even bigger deficits that would have to be made up somewhere else.   

Mr. Chambers often took hits from parents and school district employees who saw him as having a cost-cutting agenda that would harm some of the District's programs.  Unfortunately, many people in the public continue to either not understand and/or acknowledge the financial crisis we are in now and will continue to be in for the next several years.    Despite the flak, Chambers, as school board president, pushed on and with the assistance of a small majority of like-minded school board members and a new superintendent, they achieved the impossible -- a balanced budget, with overall spending held to the previous year's level, without a single cut in academic programming (2011-12 budget) and only a small tax increase. 


The concept of measuring success and parent satisfaction 

Mr. Chambers also did something else for the first time that anyone could remember -- he pushed the board to set eight measurable goals and objectives for administrators, staff and students, including goals for college attendance, PSSA scores, SAT & ACT scores, AP participation, National Merit, Service/Internship, parent satisfaction and even an operational budget goal that was moved the District's accounting procedures a little closer to industry-based accounting standards.

The success of Mr. Chamber's efforts to establish "measurable goals" can be tracked -- many of the targeted academic goals for 2011-12 school year were met -- 93% of graduates will go on to higher education (the goal was 93%), 51% will attend Princeton Review's Top 376 schools (goal was 50%). Also of note: our SAT scores for last school year were up and GVSD has moved up several notches on the lists of nationally recognized academic ranking organizations.  Belt tightening has held next year's budget to $76.8 million (2012-13) and concessions from the teacher's union will freeze the salaries and compensation at the 2011-12 level until a new board is elected and in place in June 2014.

The pendulum swings 

Being an agent for change in any organization is a difficult job, especially when you begin challenging public sector unions and those who would rather not be held to any performance standards or accountability.  Bruce Chambers did all of the above without credit and mostly criticism from those who chose to demonize him.  Being the last one to toot his own horn, Mr. Chambers often frustrated his supporters (including myself) who wanted him to spend more time bragging on his accomplishments -- a type of behavior of which Mr. Chambers would have no part.

As a public servant, Mr. Chambers was an outlier who saw his local school system at a crossroads between academic greatness or a slow slide into financial crisis and mediocrity.  As much as one individual can, he steered toward fiscal restraint and academic greatness.  For this he will always hold the respect of those who understand what he accomplished and those who will benefit from his tireless efforts over the last several years (GV students and taxpayers).

Kaari Burrows Davies
Parent, GVSD

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