School Committee Votes To Throw Backlog Out Window

Investigate the condition of restrooms at the King School.

Conduct an audit of the elementary school breakfast program.

Assemble a report on updating all the broadcasting equipment in the television studio.

These were just three of the items on the to-do list of Cambridge's Superintendent of Schools Bobbie J. D'Alessandro--a list that was 98 items long.

The list, whose length reached its zenith last year at a whopping 109 items, hovered over the heads of D'Alessandro and the school committee.

"It's the homework assignment you can't finish," says committee member Alice L. Turkel.

So last week, the committee voted to throw it out the window.

The list will begin anew--but this time around, there will be limits on the number of requests members can make, in an effort to cap the list's length.

This measure was included in a set of rules changes designed to increase the committee's efficiency, which passed by a unanimous vote.

"We're going to start over," D'Alessandro says. "I'm going to be very responsive because there will be a manageable amount."

That response is just what committee member Joseph G. Grassi says he is looking for. He says he expects a turnaround time of weeks--instead of months--now that the committee has given D'Alessandro a reprieve and a chance to start over.

"Items were sitting on the list," he says. "The superintendent will have to respond in a timely fashion."

Other changes are designed to streamline the committee's biweekly meetings, which frequently put off the most important business until after 10 p.m.

And soon, the committee is expected to take another major step in improving its operations. This fall, members plan to adopt a comprehensive and updated catalog of school department policies--from how to distribute free lunch to how to name schools.

The Awaiting Game

Scrapping the superintendent's to-do list was only one of the changes passed last week. But it was a major symbolic step, since the burgeoning list of "awaiting reports" exemplified poor communications between committee members and D'Alessandro.

The list was full of deadlines that had not been met. Many entries on the list were outdated. Some were put on the list by members who no longer serve on the committee.

Some items were duplicates, since oftentimes members frustrated by a report that had not been completed on time would simply request another one.

The current school committee is not unique in its efficiency troubles. More than half of the items awaiting report from the superintendent date from the previous committee, which served from 1998 to 1999.

The reports varied in scope from research-intensive reviews of student achievement to the smallest of details, like repairing band equipment and using seatbelts on busses.

In December of 1999, the committee even asked D'Alessandro to conduct a "review of portions of food given to students during lunch and breakfast, keeping in mind the portions for children in the primary grades as compared to the students in the middle school."

Dealing with this level of detail was daunting. Coupled with the day-to-day tasks of running the school system, the to-do list became too long. Items weren't being checked off very often.

They got put on the "back burner," says Nancy DiLando, D'Alessandro's executive assistant, who has been in charge of managing the to-do list.

DiLando says she spends a "fair amount" of her time trying to keep the length of the list down. The work on reports is never-ending and DiLando welcomes a fresh start.

"We have, we hope, a better system," she says. "We're starting a new slate, a nice clean slate."

Lois E. Sullivan, director of public information for the Cambridge Public Schools, has followed the school committee closely for 10 years.

In the past, she says, officials from the school department met after every committee meeting to parcel out the reports among the administrators best qualified to handle each one.

"We developed a system," she says. "It didn't go anywhere."

But unfinished reports are a drag on the smooth functioning of the school department.

"That kind of stuff is what clogs it up--just knowing there are lots of [reports]," she says.

Turkel says she does not blame D'Alessandro for working only "intermittently" to fulfill the committee's requests but says she worried about the effect of the backlog.

"You've given the superintendent a new power you may not have intended," she says.

Turkel says the committee had effectively surrendered its control over the school department's priorities. With so many reports to choose from, D'Alessandro could set priorities by working on certain reports first and letting other ones languish.

To prevent the new list from getting out of hand, the committee voted last week to limit each member to two requests at each meeting.

But with seven members, that still could amount to as many as 28 reports a month, and there are even ways around this requirement in the new rules.

The school committee also contains multiple subcommittees, each of which is made up of three committee members. And there is no limit on the number of reports a subcommittee can request.

But overall, members say, the new system will improve communication between D'Alessandro and the committee.

The rules will "encourage members to work one-on-one with the superintendent," says committee member E. Denise Simmons.

Bulging Binders

When Simmons came to the school committee in 1992, the committee had no way of keeping track of the rules it adopted. When the committee passed a new policy, no one checked to see how the change affected measures already on the books.

"It would just be added to the book," Simmons says. "Nothing got pulled out."

'The book' was a single binder bulging with policies on subjects ranging from homework to family involvement in the schools. As new policies were added, it became hopelessly confused. No one knew what the committee's policies were and no one tried to find out.

Consequently, recent school committees have spent time drafting many policies that duplicated ones already in 'the book.'

For the past three years, Simmons has led other members in an effort to organize the policies and weed out those that were superseded by later measures.

Committee members worked with officials from the Massachusetts Association of School Committees (MASC) and with school department administrators.

Jim Hardy, a field services representative for MASC, worked with the committee and has helped dozens of other committees around the state to organize their policies.

Cambridge is not the only city trying to update its school department policies. The Education Reform Act of 1993 redefined the role of school committees in Massachusetts and assigned new responsibilities to superintendents. That meant existing policies on everything from personnel to procurement were outdated.

Since the act was passed, Hardy has seen a "huge increase" in committees wanting to rework their rules. MASC has worked in the past with 70 committees out of the state's 331 school districts and is currently working with 16 more.

He says Cambridge was more up-to-date than many other districts he has worked with. Some districts have not looked at their policies since the early 1970's.

"Cambridge had done a good job at drafting policy," he says. "It was just the filing system that made it so cumbersome."

Hardy met with committee members regularly--even weekly--for much of the last three years to organize the policy. Now, he says, all of the policies are organized into an easy-to-follow alphabetical system.

Even with the outdated policies deleted, Simmons says the final project is "mammoth," totaling more than 1,000 pages. She says every member should read through the document several times before adopting it.

"It's not what you'd call light, recreational reading," she concedes.

The committee had planned to adopt the policies earlier this month. But those plans have been put off indefinitely, several school committee members said.

Order, Order

Other rules changes passed last week aim to speed up meetings and make them more businesslike.

"A lot of important business got done after 10 o'clock," says committee member Nancy Walser.

The new rules limit the time for public comment to three minutes for each community member signed up to speak. Three minutes had been the informal standard, but Walser says the committee needed a firm rule that could be applied consistently--especially when many people signed up to speak on a controversial issue.

Another change aims to speed up debate by limiting committee members to short speeches. However, there is no limit on the number of times they may speak.

Members hope the shorter meetings will mean more people stay around at the meetings and keep their television sets tuned for the duration of the meeting to the school district's cable channel, where meetings are broadcast live.

Other rules changes under the heading of "Meeting Etiquette" call for a "courteous and respectful tone" during meetings and require members to refer to each other in the third person, rather than by direct address, and also to call one another by their last names, in order to "promote a formal atmosphere."

Last week, members frequently called fellow members by their first names. Several times committee member Alfred B. Fantini was called "Freddy."

Some changes are even more basic, like the one instructing the chair of the meeting to "repeat the motion on the floor to make sure all members know what is being discussed/voted."

And then there's the meeting room. While upgrading the facility is not top on the committee's agenda, the rules passed last week call for "a specific plan to upgrade and rearrange the space."

One problem is the old chairs. The wheels have fallen into a state of disrepair that handicaps committee members.

"With the combination of the chairs and the floor, you can't wheel around," Turkel says.

Nor is there enough space to accommodate D'Alessandro's senior administrators, who sit in the back of the room and have to walk to a microphone every time they are called on to answer questions.

"We make them sit there all night," Turkel says. "They pop up like jack-in-the boxes."