Author Archives: Stan Jester

Online Survey Vote Was Fiction

Posted on December 3, 2016 | 113 comments

The administration has repeatedly referenced the online survey as proof that the people prefer Option B. DeKalb Schools administration has now changed their tune saying the online survey was never intended to count votes.
REALLY ?? Because when I asked at the last board meeting why we didn’t go with a Doraville cluster, Dan Drake replied that when the votes came in the, input was for building additions.
Online Survey
The public participated in an online survey from Aug 23 – Sept 16 to “state preferences, rank options, and leave written comments” (secondary school study recommendations pg 11). The survey asked if the participant preferred A) a new Doraville Cluster, B) Building additions at existing schools, or C) Moving the magnet … and why.
Up until Sept 14, 70% of the participants selected Option A, a new Doraville Cluster. On Sept 15, school councils started sending out school newsletters asking the community go to “an online survey and select Option B”.
Was the support of the school councils representative of an organic desire for Option B? Or was something else at play?
Turns out some school council members had been courted by planning staff at the school district and mesmerized by the razzle dazzle talk of upgrades to aging sports, art, band, etc. facilities. As any good salesman knows, you sell the sizzle. After buying the sizzle, some schools councils turned around and told their communities to support Option B. There was no community or school wide discussion about what was in Option B or its implications. Those communities proceeded to the online survey and repeatedly voted for Option B and in two days, the support for Option B went from 21% to 51% (allegedly).
This begs the question from many people including me:
Question: There are valid concerns that many people voted multiple times in the Secondary Facilities Study Survey sited as being one of the reasons the school district administration went with Option B. Were multiple entries from the same people parsed out of the final total? How was that done?
Response from Mr. Joshua Williams (DeKalb Schools COO): The online survey, in addition to the written feedback from the public meetings and the 20 positions statements from the school councils, PTAs, and foundations, was intended to help the District and Board capture the themes of public sentiment regarding the three options presented during the Secondary School Study. The online survey simply captured the qualitative responses from the public and was not intended nor used as a voting mechanism.
This response is telling us the survey was useless. The district did not take steps to design the survey to prevent multiple votes, nor did they parse the data to determine the real volume of support for each option. If somebody votes 1000 times, its in the totals as 1000 separate votes. There is, furthermore, no way for the district to tell if 20 people said 20 different things or 1 person made 20 different points.
LET ME COUNT THE WAYS the vote total was used to justify the decision. Also known as, if it quacks like a duck, it’s a duck and that duck voted.
.pdf link icon Key Takeaways from Public Input on Three Options:
Page 18 says, “The survey results show an overall preference for B (51 percent) over Option A (45 percent) and Option C (4.5 percent)” with this image on page 16

That looks like counting “votes” to me. We know that anyone could vote as many times as they wanted to.
11/07 – Project List and Community Input Presentation
Board Q&A
Question from Stan Jester: The consultants said at the public meetings there was overwhelming support for a new Sequoyah area high school. If everybody wanted the Doraville cluster, why didn’t we do that?
Dan Drake: We had an online survey and early on there was a strong push for the Doraville cluster. As the process went on and the votes came in, the input swung to a desire to increase the size of our existing schools and not create a new cluster.
One Person – One Vote
At the community input sessions, as the consultants put it, “Overwhelming support for Option A among those who indicated a preference”. Interestingly, when everybody only got one vote, the community supported Option A by 70%

I don’t think we can have it both ways. It seems like the school district asked for everyone’s input and told us that the input shows overwhelming support for something. They actually used the words “votes” and “overall preference.” Nevermind that planning officials were working in the back room to influence the outcome. When deficiencies in the survey were questioned, especially that the survey could be so easily manipulated, we were told that the survey was “qualitative” and “not intended as a voting mechanism”.
Any use of the survey results as evidence of a preference for anything doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. If the school district truly intends to get public input, they should create a survey not susceptible to manipulation. They should also involve the broader community of residents, taxpayers, county, and city officials.

113 Comments

Posted in DeKalb County School District

Update: Multiple Schools Now Requesting Defer on E-SPLOST Vote

Posted on December 2, 2016 | 22 comments

Dunwood, Chamblee, and Lakeside cluster school councils have now sent letters requesting a deferral on the E-SPLOST V project list.

July 2016
Conceptual plans were created for adding more classrooms to Chamblee Charter HS, Dunwoody HS, Lakeside HS and Peachtree Charter MS.
August
School councils were asked if they would like 1) classroom additions and renovations or 2) have the student population reduced via a new Doraville cluster.
September
Many school councils, like Dunwoody HS, requested the renovations and the 600 seat classroom addition saying they are “really embarrassed by some of the facilities at DHS”.
October
During the time DeKalb was asking parents and school councils to weigh in on how e-SPLOST should be spent, they released specific dollar amounts that each school would receive for its addition and renovation. After parents and school councils gave their opinion, the administration reduced the budgets by as much as 35% for additions and renovations at Lakeside HS, Chamblee HS, Dunwoody HS and Peachtree Charter MS.
November
The administration released the conceptual plans that were created in July for the additions/renovations. None of the plans include substantial improvements in common space.

December
Dunwoody, Chamblee and Lakeside cluster school councils ask for a delay on the vote for Category II of the E-SPLOST Project List until the actual projects are better defined to avoid any confusion and misunderstandings about what the building renovations and additions entail.
If these common spaces are not addressed, in the case of Dunwoody High School, the community will end up with 600 more seats but little in the way of common space improvements for the students they already have, let alone the additional seats. The same thing appears to be true for Chamblee and Lakeside. The bottom line: more seats and less common space per student. That is not acceptable.
Request for 60 Day Deferral Vote on SPLOST V Funding 
From: Dunwoody High School Council
Date: December 2, 2016

DeKalb County School Board and Leadership,
This letter requests that the BOE defer a final vote on SPLOST V funding for a period of 60 days. Despite being an overcrowded school in need of relief as soon as possible, we feel it is critically important to ensure that SPLOST money addresses critical and long-standing needs at DHS, and the information provided to date is not sufficient to ensure this will happen. This is what we would like to see accomplished in a deferral period:
1. Further information on the exclusion of gym capacity in our addition as well as a reconsideration of this exclusion.
2. Further clarification on specific items that will be included within an addition at DHS. We would like to work out specific classroom types that will be included in our addition.
DHS’s last major SPLOST project, while very beneficial to the school, did leave off an Arts wing that many had thought was to be part of the project, despite the project being completed under budget. We would like to avoid this type of confusion this time.
3. We would like to go over all proposed addition square footages and associated calculations that went into those. As it relates to GA DOE state criteria for common spaces, we see it as prudent to incorporate a safety factor to allow for the continued growth that is likely to happen throughout DCSD beyond 2022 to avoid the types of challenges overcrowded schools like DHS currently face. The current information does not provide any specifics on the approach to get to the expansions included within the plan.
Sincerely,
Dunwoody High School Council

E-SPLOST Project List Vote Deferrals and Position Updates

22 Comments

Posted in Chamblee High School, Dunwoody High School, Lakeside High School