Mary McGarr-- Commentary on the 2006 Bond Committee Membership
A FUZZY MATH PROBLEM
Using a Power Point
Presentation, the basics of the committee and its work were elucidated by Dr.
Harrison for the Board.
Prior to the presentation,
the announcement was made that 97 people served on the committee, but when the
PPP opened up, the number was 98. No
corrections were made as to the number.
The PPP said that 8 meetings of the committee were held in June, and that
80% of the members or “roughly” 80 people showed up at every meeting.
Commentaries from committee members also alluded to the “80” figure.
The District had earlier
announced that 150 people had been invited to serve on the committee and that 90
people had accepted.
Having attended at least
five of the meetings where I counted committee members, I saw approximately 72
to 78 members present at those meetings.
When the Watchdog$ asked for
a list of the members, in June, the list given had 94 names on it.
On August 21, 2006, on the
KISD web site, there were 105 names listed on the committee.
Couching this math problem a
la “problem solving” such as our children are asked to solve in their math
classes:
ACCORDING TO THE INFORMATION
GIVEN, HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE ON THE BOND COMMITTEE?
a)
97
b)
98
c)
105
d)
94
e)
77.6 (80% of 97)
f)
75
g)
90
h)
104 1/2
i)
None of the above
j)
A couple of the above
k)
All of the above
STUDY PROBLEMS TO DO AT HOME
WITH YOUR MOM
1.
Do you or your Mom care how many members of the committee there were?
2.
Why didn’t anyone take roll if it seemed important to know the number?
3.
If there were nine tables of committee members that held eight people,
using your calculator, how many is that?
4.
If the District invited 150 people to be on the committee, why did more
than one third of them say no? Again, using your calculator, what is one third
of 150?
5.
Why was Annette Hoffman the only invited committee member whose refusal
was noted by the superintendent several times? What about the other 59?
Using your calculator, add 1 to 59.
6.
How many of the committee members sincerely agreed to come to try to help
the district develop a good bond proposal? How many of these did not understand
the game? How many of these people
sat at a table to which they were not assigned? Using your calculator, add all
those numbers.
7.
At the bond committee meeting, how many of the committee members at each
table were “facilitators”? How does
this make you feel?
8. How many facilitators, (besides Michelle Hughes and Assistant Superintendent Bailey) were there? Use your calculator if necessary or ask Siri.
9.
Who asked the most questions?
10.
Which committee members abided by the ground rules that said
conversations would be limited to issues, not people?
11.
Is 80% of 97, 80?
12.
Is 80% of 98, 80?
13.
Does “Harry/Donna Herzog” count as one or two people?
14.
Where was everyone else’s spouse?
15.
If one is invited to speak for fifteen minutes and field questions for 15
minutes, isn't it rather nice of one to stay and take a beating for an hour and
ten minutes?
16.
Is there a difference between June and July?
17.
Where was Joe Adams?
18.
How is it that just 12 years ago, a 26 member bond committee came up with a 90 million dollar bond proposal that built 4 elementary
schools, 2 junior high schools, added on to Taylor high school, rebuilt Katy
High School (the first time), renovated Mayde Creek High School (the first time), Katy Elementary, Mayde Creek
Junior High and West Memorial Junior High, bought 10 million dollars of
technology items, expanded the warehouse, transportation, maintenance, food
service, security, a teacher center, technology repair and print shop
facilities, paid for all the furniture and equipment to equip all the new
schools and expanded and renovated areas, paid 3.5 million to the architects and
bought 3 million dollars worth of land for all this new construction --all while
keeping the tax rate at $1.63 which was lower than Spring Branch, Humble,
Cy-Fair, Spring, Alief and Klein, which now all have lower tax rates than KISD?
19.
If the school district cannot ascertain the number of people on their
Bond Committee, cannot count, cannot figure percentages, and says one thing
while their printed material says another, is it reasonable to assume that their
other “statistics” might not be very accurate either?
20.
Based on the School District’s information, does your Mom plan to vote
for the Bond Initiative next November?