Jim Collins: Candidate for Elmhurst Unit District 205 School Board

Campaign Information
www.jimcollins205.org
jim@jimcollins205.org

Family: Wife, Julie; daughters Katherine, a sophomore at York, and Anna, a fourth-grader at Edison

Education:

• Field, Immaculate Conception and Sandburg
• York High School – Class of 1976
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign College of Engineering, Bachelor of Science
• University of Chicago, Booth Graduate School of Business, MBA, Concentration in Corporate Finance

Professional Experience:

Wells Fargo Securities, the investment banking division of Wells Fargo & Co.

• Managing director, Chicago office, Investment Grade Fixed Income, Markets Division, 2003 to present

Credit Suisse|First Boston

• Director, Fixed Income Division, 1992-2002

Why are you running for School Board?

I am seeking re-election to the School Board because I am convinced Elmhurst 205 can become one of the very best school districts in the United States. We have all the essential ingredients: great teachers, great students, supportive parents, a community that is supportive of education, and now we have an experienced administration that knows how to take a very good school district and transform it into one of the very best. I am a product of Elmhurst 205. The education I received here laid the foundation for my undergraduate and graduate school success and the success I have found in my professional life. Every day in Elmhurst, I see my York classmates and countless others give back to our community. This is my way—helping to create brighter futures for our children and a strong community.

What will be your top priority if elected?

Academic excellence for all our Elmhurst District 205 schools and students continues to be my top priority, and I pledge to persist and support our teachers and our administration until we are ranked among the top school districts in the nation. I will work to get them the necessary resources and interject our community’s values into our curriculum. One example of this promise in action was my work to help persuade the City of Elmhurst to include Conrad Fischer and Churchville Middle School in the boundaries of TIF 4. The board and I were diligent over a year-long period, negotiating an intergovernmental agreement between the city and the School District that will generate up to $10 million over time and ensures equitable distribution to all our District 205 schools. 

I was likewise persistent as one of the two board representatives in the negotiation of the teacher contract. Collaborative discussions resulted in the addition of 15 minutes of instructional time each day at the elementary level, bringing elementary-day minutes up to state averages and equivalent to six additional days of instruction over the course of one school year. We also added an extra period every day in the middle schools when teachers help students who need help the most. And at the high school, we added support for the integration of the professional learning community model by adding a late arrival day every week in order to give teachers time to collaborate and improve the quality of instruction they deliver to our students. 

What sets you apart from the other candidates? 

What sets me apart from the other candidates for School Board is both my strong background in finance and four years of experience as a School Board member.

First, my financial expertise has been particularly helpful and directly beneficial to the taxpayers of Elmhurst. Through my leadership, and with the help of the board, we have been able to twice refinance district debt obligations resulting in saving of over $1.5 million, with more refinancing planned for every year between now and 2016. This money is not redeployed in the School District. It serves to directly reduce property tax bills. 

Additionally, together with other board members, I have helped ensure that we have had a balanced School District budget for four years in a row, held property tax increases to rate of inflation over last four years, prudently allocated resources through collaborative and careful contract negotiations, and assisted with negotiations and successful adoption of new intergovernmental agreement pertaining to the new Tax Increment Financing District that will generate up to $10 million for the School District over time. 

I have led the way toward fiscal responsibility. For the first time in District 205 history, all three of our labor contracts (which include all but about a hundred of our employees) now tie wage increases to a rate less than the Consumer Price Index, which governs our revenue increases. 

Second, as a seasoned board member, I have the knowledge base to keep moving forward with the work of the board. I have already spent countless hours in our schools listening to and talking with teachers, parents, administrators, students and community members about how to make our schools even better. If I am re-elected, I will be the most experienced member on the board. 

But I also have leadership experience, not just seasoning. My fellow board members elected me president last year and I have learned even more in this role. I lead by consensus, keeping an open mind, listening and making sure everyone is given the opportunity to contribute to the success of our schools.  Through our team efforts, we have established respect and trust among all the board members, and I work hard to make certain we are utilizing each individual board member’s talent to the fullest. This allows us to divide the workload and be more efficient in order to accomplish more for our taxpayers and our students, and has resulted in a highly productive Board of Education, where all seven members are keenly focused on the needs of our students and making our district better every day. 

School Board members are taking on the very large task of developing a long-term, sustainable financial plan that could potentially change the way the School District is structured. What ideas do you have to help the district get to long-term financial sustainability? 

My first idea is to listen carefully to our community and listen to what type of education they want our schools to deliver to our children. We must deliver this education in the most cost effective manner possible. We must make sure we have cut every cost possible and make sure we do not have over-funded or over-reserved accounts. We must investigate every opportunity to save every dollar that is practical and deliver the best possible education at the best price to our community. Our property values depend upon the quality of education we deliver to our students. If re-elected, I plan to help the board and administration lead a year-long conversation about long term financial stability of our district in the face of very real economic difficulties hitting every school district in Illinois. Any and all ideas will be welcome, fully vetted and put before the community for a long, deep discussion.

How do you feel about a shift to a three-tier bus schedule that would result in a $300,000 savings, but also a change in school start times?

There are too many unknowns at this point to make a decision about a three-tier bus system for Elmhurst 205 schools. The idea of a change in the bus schedule was forwarded as one possible cost-saving measure. But, as I write above, before implementing any measure like this, we need to fully understand its impact on families and the community. First, research has its place. Second, a discussion of unintended consequences needs to take place. Proposed solutions like this one should never be forced upon a community like ours where we have a citizenry ready to engage and participate in an in-depth discussion about the ramifications of such a decision. As a School Board member, I will work to be sure time is taken before decisions like this one are made. 

A recent Harris Poll indicates teacher dissatisfaction in the areas of their involvement with decision-making and their view of the School Board and administration. What do you see as the cause for this, and what would you do to improve morale among teachers?

I think the issue of teacher morale is a complex issue and has multiple components, but it is important to our success as a district. As our new Superintendent Mr. Pruneau says, “It happens in the classroom.” We entrust our teachers to teach our children, and I contend that they are happiest when they are in front of and teaching our children. That’s why they joined the profession and we all admire them for their ability to inspire and lead our children. 

So, in an effort to keep teachers in class, administrators often take on decision-making and policy responsibilities. But, there must be balance. Teachers don’t want to be constantly pulled out of the classroom, but they need to be consulted, especially when decisions impact the classroom.  I think the Harris poll and the ISBE 5 Essentials Surveys are good ways we can hear more frequently from our teachers and work to address their concerns. 

The second thing we must do is create venues in which we can listen to our teachers. The superintendent has taken a good first step by recreating his District Leadership Team to include a representative from every building in our district. The board has created board liaison positions, assigning every board member to two of our schools to listen to teachers, students and parents. It is incumbent upon board members to engage teachers from the schools they are assigned in meaningful two-way discussions. I am very willing to expend the effort to achieve better communication between our teachers and our board. Everyone will be better off, especially our students. 

All that said, I imagine that some of this dissatisfaction is a result of the difficult economic environment we are in. Revenue has stagnated and Elmhurst 205 has had to make tough decisions that impact careers and positions and salaries. The hardest one of these has been cuts in teacher positions in each of the past three years. None of us wanted to lose a single teacher or teaching aide or librarian, and I imagine it is exceedingly difficult to keep morale high in an environment of several consecutive years of layoffs. This year, we hope to have better news for teachers and students. The Board of Education is considering using two, one-time revenue sources this year to plug a $1.7 million gap in the 2014 budget, which will prevent us from having to lay off teachers next year. I hope this will give a sense of security to our teaching staff, at least for the short term while we work out long term funding issues as described above. 

A goal has been to move students to digital textbooks and one-to-one computing. This will likely require more training for teachers, as well. How much of a priority is this?

I believe the time for one-to-one computing and digital textbooks is sooner than we think. Digital textbooks offer several advantages over traditional paper texts. One of the greatest advantages they offer is the delivery of content material in several ways that accommodate the different learning styles of our students.  For example, digital texts offer the ability to read the content just like paper texts and offer the advantage of lighter weight and smaller volume for our students to carry around. However the biggest advantages offered by digital textbooks is the ability to accommodate different learning styles, for example for students that favor visual learning styles, digital texts offer the ability to click on a picture and a video of the content is played to the student. Another example is the ability to click on a picture and manipulate the 3-D graphics to examine the object from different angles and perspectives and greater magnification and detail, whether the object is an internal organ of a mammal in a biology class or a sculpture in an art class or a suspension bridge in a physics class. 

One-to-one computing also allows our teachers to best accommodate the different learning styles of our students. For example one-to-one computing allows our teachers to “flip the classroom.” District 205 is piloting this concept in the delivery of our chemistry curriculum. Flipping the classroom involves delivering the lesson via video, which the student watches on their device in the evening and starts some homework problems that evening. This allows our teachers to answer questions during class time and gives our teachers the time and the ability to make sure every student in the classroom understands that day’s material.

So yes, District 205 should be pursuing any technological advance that allows us to deliver more effective and efficient instruction, including one-to-one computing and replacing paper textbooks with digital textbooks. As the delivery of content changes, and the cost of the hardware to deliver this content drops, it would be irresponsible not to pursue these options, but we must not adopt technology until we have made sure it is effective.   

In my opinion, given scarce resources, we should monitor efforts of better-funded districts as they pioneer new technologies, and then we should adopt those with demonstrated and proven value. We are already doing this in Elmhurst, observing districts such as New Trier and Naperville. As we consider cost, including infrastructure, hardware, teacher training and technical support, we can make some decisions at the board level to reclassify our technology expenditures and move them out of our education fund into our capital fund, allowing us to borrow money to fund technology upgrades on a three-year rolling basis instead of the current ten. The district’s current referendum-approved debt schedule will only allow us to borrow for capital expenditures for 10 years, forcing us to fund $2 million borrowing for ten years and thereby paying almost $1 million in interest expense to fund a $2 million purchase. By opening up the short-term debt capacity of the district, technology could be financed on a rolling three-year schedule and would eliminate the majority of the debt service cost. 

What other message do you want to get across to Elmhurst voters?

I have spent several thousand hours over the past four years helping to make our School District a better place. I feel my greatest accomplishment has been to focus our Board of Education discussions on increasing the academic achievements of our students. Over the past four years, I have established a track record of achievement for our students and our property taxpayers. In the past four years, student achievement in all of our schools has risen. Our district has won three U.S. Department of Education Blue Ribbon awards in the past four years, with likely another on the way. I have facilitated the transition from a central administration, whose decision making process caused huge distractions that took focus off of academic achievement, and helped lead the way to the hiring of a new administration of educational leaders who have a track record of transforming very good schools into great schools.

My goal is to transform our already very good School District into one of the best in the nation. In the past four years, we have worked together to lay the foundation for that transformation. In the next four years, with the help of our teachers, our students, our parents, our administration and our community, we can go a long way to achieving that goal. When we succeed, our property values will be substantially higher, and our children’s futures will be brighter. 

Please visit my website: www.jimcollins205.org for more details