transparency
Transparency Builds Trust – the Virtuous Circle
What is transparency and trust. Merriam-Webster Unabridged free dictionary suggests:
Transparency - the quality of being transparent
Synonyms - clarity, clearness
Antonyms - cloudiness, opacity
Trust - Firm belief in the integrity, ability, effectiveness, or genuineness
Synonyms - confidence, faith, stock
Antonyms - skepticism, suspicion, uncertainty
For over 40 years, since 1973, Gallup has conducted annual national surveys on the trust we have in our institutions. Gallup asks respondents to rate their personal trust in fifteen institutions, using one of five categories. The two highest categories are “Great deal of trust” and “Quite a lot of trust”. The sum of these two rating is referred to in many articles and press reports. A major disappointment is the decline in trust in public schools, from approximately 60% in 1973 to approximately 30% in 2019. Public schools are below the mid-point among the institutions Gallup has tracked.
On the flip-side, the Pew Research Center has discovered “K-12 public school principals” are the most trusted leaders. These leaders display the building blocks of trust, (e.g. competence, honesty, benevolence, empathy, openness, integrity and accountability). K-12 public school principals score highest on:
· Care about others or “people like me”
· Provide fair and accurate information to the public
· Handle resources responsibly
Pew Research Center (September 19, 2019):
”People invest their trust in institutions and those who have power for a variety of reasons. Researchers have found that people’s confidence in others and organizations can include their judgments about the competence, honesty and benevolence of the organizations or individuals they are assessing, as well as factors such as empathy, openness, integrity and accountability. These perceptions can be seen as building blocks of trust.”
Caring, transparency and responsibility matter to the public, particularly related to public schools. Our community is fortunate to be served by both the LASD and the BCS public schools. Both educational programs are doing an excellent job, academic results are terrific, and the key participants (students, parents and teachers) are enthusiastically engaged.
However, there is a remarkable difference in transparency. The LASD board and senior staff are bound by many regulations requiring transparency and accountability. The leaders of these organization were nurtured and grew professionally in a culture of transparency.
The legislative intent of California Charter Act enables a charter to “operate independently from the existing school district structure.” BCS, chartered by SCCOE, has the legal option, and has opted for, a much lower level of transparency than required by LASD. BCS accountability is to SSCOE, not the local community. Over the last decade, the BCS Board and senior staff have nurtured a culture of limited transparency and invested in a close relationship with SCCOE staff and Board members, not our community.
Operating independently, these different approaches to serving our students is generally accepted by our community. The situation changes when the boards, senior staff and parents of the two organizations feel threatened or in conflict for scarce resources. Proposition 39 created a structural conflict between these two service-oriented groups. Unfortunately, resolving issues related to the scarce resource of facilities has involved lawsuits, large legal fees and court time. The diversion of resources from educational activities has contributed to a polarized situation.
Trust is a building block of successful relationships between individuals and organizations. A lack of transparency, between individuals and organizations, can lead to skepticism, suspicion and uncertainty.
After WWII, our community began purchasing land and building 15 schools. Local neighborhood developments where built with the schools as the nexus. Enrollments grew rapidly, peaked in the 1960’s, then declined by 50% in the 1970’s during which 6 schools were closed. By the mid-1980’s enrollments stabilized, the painful lessons of the long-term consequences of selling schools became deeply embedded in the memories of our public-school leaders. Since 1984, no more schools were sold. If required, due to annual budget constraints, schools were temporarily closed and space rented. One school, Covington was closed for 20 years and another one, Purissima-Bullis was closed for 5 years. Fortunately, both sites were not sold and renovated. Today, 35 years after the last sale of a school, enrollments are robust, every campus is serving more students than the original design specification there are many portables on each site, and the community passed a $150,000,000 bond measure to add a 10th site.
Today, there are scarce facilities resources and the two public school organizations (and their respective constituents) lack trust in each other. The fundamental issues our community has to address are not about who gets which facility, this is a second order set of issues. We need to decide how we feel about de facto ethnic and racial segregation, our role in educating the economically disadvantaged, the importance of transparency in maintaining public trust in our institutions, the importance of physical (vs. virtual/commuter) communities, how we finance our schools, and what are the roles of BCS and LASD in supporting both in-district and out-of-district students.
The historical lack of transparency by BCS has encouraged skepticism, suspicion, uncertainty on many issues. In an effort to focus on objective public data and official reports, a number of issues were examined. Unfortunately, examining some of these issues has not been comforting. The following issues are related to decisions/actions by the senior staff and board of BCS.
Hopefully the students, families and parents will appreciate that these are primarily leadership issues.
Who does BCS serve, all of LASD or just a subset of the district?
What are the characteristics of the BCS enrollees?
Does BCS proportionally serve students with disabilities?
Does BCS proportionally serve economically disadvantaged students?
What portion of registrations for the BCS lottery from out-of-district?
What portion of the BCS enrollees are from out-of-district?
Why does BCS recruit approximately 1/3 of their registrations when approximately 5% are enrolled?
What is the long-term plan of the BCS Board? What are the checks and balances on the BCS Board?
What portion of the existing BCS enrollees are commuting to the campus?
What was the source the six million dollars raised by the BCS Foundation in 2005?
Has the BCS foundation paid, and not disclosed, payments to third parties?
Has there been effort recruit students from families with higher educational accomplishments and higher income?
What are BCS donations per student?
What are the annual costs to serve BCS students?
Has there been efforts to influence local elections?
Trust will be accomplished by much greater transparency, developing shared goals and working together to accomplish them. Building trust between the BCS leadership and the community will take time to create a cultural shift.
A more thorough examination of each these issues is available in other research areas of this website.
Brief Reponses to Questions and Confusion Resulting from Lack of Transparency
Q: Who does BCS serve, all of LASD or just a subset of the district?
A: ALL LASD students.
Potentially the BCS Board has not embraced the clear statement in the BCS September 2008 Material Revision Request, "WHOM THE SCHOOL IS ATTEMPTING TO EDUCATE: The School seeks to educate all students in the state of California who wish to attend the School subject only to capacity, with a focus on serving students of the Los Altos Elementary School District. The school seeks to preserve a neighborhood school environment, serving kindergarten through eighth grade students."
Did the BCS Board cling to the notion that BCS was a neighborhood school, not responsible to also serve the most economically disadvantaged in LASD? Did the BCS Board see the BCS reference points as the neighborhood schools of Covington, Gardner Bullis, Loyola, Oak and Springer, rather than Almond and Santa Rita and the entire district? The BCS Board recognized this, and in the 2016 BCS Charter Petition, they formally changed the section, WHOM THE SCHOOL IS ATTEMPTING TO EDUCATE, from “preserving a neighborhood school environment” to “maintain a community school environment.”
Q: What are the characteristics of the BCS enrollees?
A: Impressive but not reflective of LASD
While publicly articulating plans to do otherwise, the senior staff and BCS Board have embraced recruiting practices, admission policies and the offering of services which have had the empirical effect of disproportionally serving certain segments of the LASD community. The empirical impact (CBE data reflect what happened, not what was hoped for or promised):
Over representation of Asian and two races
Under representation of Hispanic and white
Underservice of the most educationally disadvantaged:
Students with disabilities
Student eligible for FRPM
English language learners
The many messaging vehicles used by BSC are carefully crafted to avert responsibility for these outcomes, and instead, have compounded the disproportionality between BCS and LASD. For example, the analysis indicates from 2013-14 to 2018-19, 50% to over 60% of new enrollees were Asian.
Q: Does BCS proportionally serve students with disabilities?
A: No
The reported data indicates that the combination of BCS under enrollment (by 24), and disproportionately lower enrollment (by 13) of higher-cost-to-serve categories of disabilities, results, on an annual basis, in LASD over-absorbing and BCS under-absorbing, more than $1,000,000 in costs.
Q: Does BCS proportionally serve economically disadvantaged students?
A: BCS has under enrolled students eligible for FRPM
BCS is under enrolled in LASD students who are eligible for Free and Reduced-Price Meals (FRPM). The BCS Board has been aware of their 2008 charter commitment to serve all the students of LASD, yet for the last 15 years, the BCS campus has been in close physical proximity to Santa Rita and Almond, both of which serve over 10% of their students who are eligible for FRPM. The extreme embrace required to serve of these students, which is a typical priority of most charter schools, did not occur in 2008, 2014, or 2016. What was done, was ineffective.
Did the BCS Board cling to the notion that BCS was a neighborhood school, not responsible to also serve the most economically disadvantaged in LASD? Did the BCS Board see the BCS reference points as the neighborhood schools of Covington, Gardner Bullis, Loyola, Oak and Springer, rather than the entire district?
Q. What portion of registrations for the BCS lottery is from out-of-district?
A: Approximately 1/3 are out-of-district (2011 and 2014 petitions)
The lottery pool appears to be “shaped” to match the ethnicity, race and economic status of the LASD population. The actual enrollees are approximately 95% from LASD, the out of district applications seem to be the lowest priority in the lottery, empirically over time they were “practically ineligible” in the lottery, and were potentially just recruited to both shape the lottery and to burnish the image of scarcity though over-application.
Q: What portion of the BCS enrollees are from out-of-district?
A: Approximately 5%
A petition filing noted in 2014-15 noted 6% (or 44 students) were out of district. In another public document, the proposed facilities plan for 2019-20 the projection, indicates the expectation of 4% (or 47 students) would be out-of-district. Representatives of BCS have mentioned a similar ratio, approximately 5%, in public discussions. For this analysis, assume the average out-of-district enrollment is approximately 5%.
Q: Why does BCS recruit approximately 1/3 of their registrations when approximately 5% are enrolled?
A: Maybe regulatory, maybe a public relations tool, maybe part of a long-term plan
One hypothesis is recruiting hundreds of out-of-district registrations, effectively “ineligible applicants”, is a tool to manage perceptions:
Regulatory Requirement - The perception the lottery pool (vs. the actual admissions) reflects the racial and ethnic balance in LASD
Scarcity – The perception of scarcity influences many behaviors (e.g. demand spikes for consumer products in limited supply, collectors bid-up prices of scarce objects, colleges advertise application to admission rates to enhance the desirability of a university, and parents may perceive value in a school which limits the number students and has requirements for admission)
Another hypothesis is in the long-term the BCS Board has aspirations to increase the ratios of out-of-district enrollment.
Q: What is the long-term plan of the BCS Board? What are the checks and balances on the BCS Board
A: SCCOE and Proposition 39 limits deploying LASD facilities to in district students
There are basically two checks and balances:
Oversight by the SCCOE (comply with the charter school act)
Adding another piece to the puzzle is the BCS Board has conflicting incentives related to admitting out-of- district students. A positive incentive is ~$8,000 annual funding for serving out-of-district students. A negative incentive is the lack of facilities. Prop 39 does not provide facilities for out-of-district students. Enrolling out-of district students results in adding extra students to classrooms. These conflicting incentives have served as a check-and-balance on how many out-of-district students BCS might serve. Although out-of-district applications are approximately 1/3 of total applications, only approximately 5% of the enrollees are from out-of-district. Once again, the lack of routine public disclosure necessitates stitching together periodic disclosures.
If a neighborhood school is closed and the campus dedicated to BCS, what will happen to the facilities check and balance? For example, since each portable classroom costs ~$200,000 to install and ~$100,000 a year to lease for 10 years ($200,000 plus $100,000 = $300,000), could BCS decide to deploy half of its cash investments portfolio of $3,000,000 and pay to install 10 additional portables, allowing the admission of 200 out-of-district students? If this were to occur, what option would the LASD Board have but to continue to deny the local neighborhood a school to the benefit of a “community” of commuters, who if current practices continue, would not reflect the rest of LASD?
Q: What portion of the existing BCS enrollees are commuting to the campus?
A: Approximately 75%
Although BCS is not transparent regarding the residential areas of their students, the reinvented BCS has been committed (since 2008 Charter Petition) to serving all of LASD, an over 20 square mile area, and since the historical population served in Los Altos Hills is being served by a neighborhood school, then the vast majority of the families BCS serves have opted for an educational experience centered around a commuter campus and a commuter community. In addition, the BCS Board has also chosen to recruit students from outside the LASD district. In 2008, 2011 and 2014 petitions, 1/3 of the BCS applicants are from outside of the district and five years ago the out-of-district enrollment was 6%. Today’s out-of-district enrollment is not disclosed. Assuming 5% to 10% of the enrolled students are out-of-district, then 45 to 90 of the students are commuting from other communities. Over half of the out-of-district students are 7th and 8th grade students.
Q: What was the source the six million dollars raised by the BCS Foundation in 2005?
A: Unknown
The BCS Foundation filed an initial Form 990 in 2003, receiving donations of $174K, $1.1M and $6.0M, in its first three years (2003, 2004 and 2005). In the same year, the initial 2003 Charter Request was filed with the clear goal of either buying the Purimmisa-Bullis site or reopening it as a charter school. The narrative in the 2003 filing helps indicate why the BCS Foundation raised these funds. Although filings by the BCS Foundation, and several other foundations, may point to the source of ~$2M of the $6M donated in 2005, the source of the remaining $4M is not transparent. Did the funds come from a national or state-wide charter school organization/advocate?
Q: Has the BCS foundation paid, and not disclosed, payments to third parties?
A: Yes
The IRS Form 990s indicate that the BCS Foundation chooses to financially support the BCS School using two methods. One, as a direct contribution to the BCS School’s non-profit entity. The other method, although not clearly disclosed, seems to be making direct disbursements to third parties, by BCS Foundation, for the benefit of the BCS School. During the last decade, 2005 to 2017, direct payments to third parties (not to the school) in support for BCS School have been approximately $6,000,000. Approximately $300,000 of these disbursements were disclosed on the BCS foundation’s 2016 & 2017 Form 990’s (over $100K disbursements to independent contractors). The lack of transparency by the BCS Foundation Boards on the other $5,700,000 of direct payments to third parties raises a number of questions.
Q: Has there been effort recruit students from families with higher educational accomplishments and higher income?
A: Yes
The educational accomplishments of the families of BCS students are very impressive. In the 2016 Renewal Petition, Bullis Charter School WASC/CDE Self-Study Report 2015 notes that 98% of the over 700 students came from a household with a parent who has earned a college degree and 86% also earned a graduate degree or higher. According to the 2010 census, these BCS parents have obtained a higher percent (98%) of bachelor degrees than percent of age 25 and older residents, in Los Altos Hills (84%), Los Altos (82%) and Mountain View (67%). Research by the US Federal Reserve indicates, an advanced/graduate degree, or higher, correlates with high income and family wealth.
Q: What are BCS donations per student?
A: Average of all donations $4,500 to $5,000, average from attending families unknown
Information on the actual participation of families, alumni families and community members, and the average contribution per family, alumni or community members does not seem to be readily available. BCS Foundation Board has chosen to not be consistently transparent in this regard.
As a point of reference, the Los Altos Educational Foundation (LEAF) serving LASD provides a great deal of transparency. The 2017-18 annual report indicate that approximately 1,770 families (~42% participation) contributed $2,596,700 (average of ~$1470 per family contributing). The average contribution from the approximately 200 alumni families and community member/groups was ~$1,580.
The lack of transparency leads to stitching-together periodic bits of publicly disclosed information:
The 2011 Bloomberg Magazine article titled “Taxpayers Get Billed for Kids of Millionaires at Charter School” mentioned Bullis asks families to donate $5,000 per child each year and a foundation set up to help fund the school asks Bullis parents to donate at least $5,000 for each child they enroll.
The 2016 BCS Petition, the school receives $4,500 per student per year.
IRS 990 forms, filed at a requirement of maintaining a non-profit status, indicate aggregate donations (from families and other sources) to the foundation (calendar year) divided by BCS School enrollment (school year) average in the $4,500 to $5,000 range.
Q: What are the annual costs to serve BCS students?
A: Approximately $12,000 per year
From 2007 to 2017, the BCS School Revenue per Student has been approximately $12,000 (form 990 expenditures divided by enrolled students). The current BCS Foundation web site indicates that “During the 2019-20 school year, it will cost approximately $14,600 to educate each BCS student.” Historically, BCS School has served their students for approximately $12,000 per student. A $14,600 cost will be an increase of over 20% from the $12,000 historical run rate. Is the $14,600 estimate an error to motivate donors?
Q: Has there been efforts to influence local elections?
A: Yes
The 2014 LASD Board elections seem to be an example of intended transparency. In that election, five candidates offered to provide leadership and oversite for LASD. Three candidates ran financially modest campaigns funded by the candidate and by fully disclosed members of the community. Two candidates ran more extravagant financial campaigns, with significant funding from outside our community, which was not disclosed until a couple months after the election. Many members of our community did not realize the messaging and media we received was a premeditated effort to influence the election in our community, using money collected from the national scene, then sent to the state-wide scene, and then used as matching funds from an undisclosed local pop-up PAC. Eighteen of the 40 individual donors to the local pop-up PAC had served on the BCS School or the BCS Foundation Boards. This lack of transparency does not build trust. To the contrary, it nurtures skepticism, suspicion, and uncertainty.