A survey is only as good as the controls it sets

Lunches have been packed, sleep routines reset, and spelling words called out since students returned to classrooms across Georgia. Now parents, teachers, and students are reviewing progress reports and sizing up what happens during the next half of the grading period.

This point in the school year also gives school leaders an opportunity to review what is working and what might need to be adjusted. During a pandemic, the ability for schools to pivot on a pinhead may be the difference between lives saved and lost.

On the afternoon of Thursday, September 9, 2021, Washington County Public Schools sent out a survey using a Google platform tool asking for feedback from the school community. The survey tool is one I have used as both an executive director and board president of nonprofits.

The school system’s email with the link to the survey was sent to me by parents in the community. The form didn’t ask for any identifying information: no name, email, address, phone number. It did ask if the person responding is a school employee. It could be filled out by anyone anywhere  who had the link. I filled it out and submitted it. Twice.

Friday morning when I returned to the link it said I had already submitted my answer. Fair enough. After poking around with it some during the second of many cups of coffee, I got this:

Washington County Public Schools survey
September 10, 2021

The survey showed my email address, but Google’s software told me it wasn’t collecting anything from my account.

This isn’t the first time the schools have sent out a survey without parameters set on who could fill out the survey, or requiring any identifying information, in order to submit the survey. Last school year I picked up the phone and ended up talking with Dr. Rickey Edmond, who assured me that they were able to collect identifying data even though none was require to submit answers. I told him having seen the backside of these surveys via my Google business account, I’d sure like to know how they were managing that, because it might help me in the future. All I got was, “We can.”

With the broad questions asked in last week’s survey, what can Dr. Edmond  the Board of Education, and school principals really take away beyond how smooth car pick up and drop off are, and general satisfaction with instruction? Is a blind survey the only way for school leaders to know how parents and employees gauge the school year to date? How confident can school leaders, parents, teachers, and students be that the survey sent out on Thursday has the controls and parameters to collect accurate information?

It will be interesting to see what Dr. Edmond and the Board of Education members share with the community. Based on recent inquiries by myself and others concerned about the system’s Covid-19 record-keeping and reporting, my confidence in the quality of information collected and shared by the school system is low. Will the results of a survey available to anyone with email be used to guide judgement impacting not only the education of every student, but the health of the entire Washington County community?

I love a good Open Records Act request

With the return to classrooms across Georgia, I have been following the Covid-19 numbers in public schools in our state. Dismissing the recommended guidelines of the CDC, and the Georgia chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, many superintendents and school boards are playing doctor with the health of their own communities. The outcome, with Georgia’s schools back in session for about a month, has resulted in schools opting to be online only, delaying the start of school, pausing all instruction after beginning the school year, and students, teachers, bus drivers, and bus monitors, dying of Covid-19.

Concerned families, school communities, medical providers, and epidemiologists wait on a weekly Friday report from the Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH) for Covid-19 cases and trends in their county. Friday afternoon is also when most school systems release their Covid-19 information to their community. Some school leaders choose full transparency and share all the data they send to DPH for its weekly report. Their communities know the number of confirmed cases, how many people are quarantined, and clusters in each school.* Other schools provide a scant report that often leaves community members in the dark while confirmed cases continue to break records in Georgia.

This data is supposed to help school leaders decide how safe, and effective, it is to keep students in classrooms. Some schools have opted for virtual and printed materials for entire grades, entire schools, or the whole system as a result of data and historic trends.

On Thursday, August 27th, during what Washington County’s school superintendent described as a “fireside chat,” Dr. Rickey Edmond told almost 100 people attending the online event that only confirmed cases matter. He dismissed the number of students and staff quarantined as”fluid.” I agree that number could be considered fluid, because it can change every day. The number of confirmed Covid-19 cases can also change every day. DPH has already elevated Washington County schools to “substantial spread” and “increasing” in its weekly report.

Washington County, GA (map source Wikipedia)

With the state ratcheting up the level of concern for everyone in Washington County’s public schools, and having looked at reports posted by other systems across Georgia, I wondered exactly what DPH requires for its weekly school report. Seeing the reporting form was the best way to know.

A friend once told me, “I love a good Open Records Act request.” Like them,  I also love a good Georgia Open Records Act (GORA) request. On Monday, August 30th, I sent one to the Dr. Edmond, copying the Washington County Board of Education members. My request was, “The information I am requesting is for the information used for the Covid-19 information released to the public on August 13, 20, 27, 2021. I am requesting the Covid-19 reports and/or data Washington County public schools sent to the Georgia Department of Public Health for its weekly school report.” That’s a pretty straightforward request because DPH requires it, the school is supposed to compile and send it, so releasing all of it doesn’t require extra work.

What I got back from Edmond was,  “Reasonable access provided with good faith:
1. In response to your request: Covid-19 information released to the public on August 13, 20, 27, 2021 is attached in a PDF Table.
2. We can’t provide you with “COVID-19 Reports and/or data sent to Georgia Department of Public Health because that information is submitted via electronic portal and the medical form used falls under 50-18-72(a). As a school entity, we must uphold HIPPA, FERPA, and privacy requirements.
3. We have provided you with additional information complied by DPH for your reference.”

Covid-19 data from Dr. Rickey Edmond, Superintendent, Washington County Public Schools, Sept 2, 2021, in response to GORA request

A complete and thorough GORA response should always be done “in good faith,” to use Dr. Edmond’s choice of words. The information sent to me isn’t what I asked for, and doesn’t comply with the GORA request. Dr. Edmond insisted that what they send has lots of confidential information in it. I asked that he redact any sensitive information and send me the form so I could see what the state requires for its weekly report on schools in our state. Additionally, saying that the form is completed online and cannot be released otherwise just doesn’t hold water in a school system with an IT department and virtual teaching capacity. Do they not save a copy of what they submit?

At this point, I was even more concerned about what the school system didn’t want to freely provide to the community. Case numbers matter, but so do the number of students and staff out for quarantine, and the number of clusters occurring in school settings. It is possible a school could have a low case load but a very high number of absences due to quarantine, resulting in dwindling classroom numbers.

What are they reporting that they aren’t telling us, and why is it so important to keep that information from us? As North Central Health District Director Michael Hokanson told me on the afternoon of August 27th, the reporting from schools relies on a good faith effort on the schools’ part.

If schools are sloppy with the parameters for collecting data, the data can’t, and shouldn’t, be trusted. If a school system isn’t carefully tracking why students are absent, for example a dental appointment, strep throat, or a death in the family, what you get at the end of the day is a number that tells you nothing about why those students were out of school. Kids and staff out due to quarantine are going to miss a significant number of consecutive school days. That impacts how they are learning, how teachers must adjust, demand for substitutes, and ultimately, if a system should use online resources to keep students up to speed, and everyone healthy.

Edmond told me to contact DPH to get the form that I ask for in my GORA request. Trying to find the right person at DPH, and actually reach them, is a circle of Hell Dante didn’t know about centuries ago. The staffers I did reach are frustrated and exhausted with how their agency is combatting Covid-19. One told me, “the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing.”

I left messages at schools, emailed schools, and filled out GORA requests via forms school boards provided on their web sites. One school superintendent called me back eager to share blank copies of the weekly form schools send to DPH  and volunteered to send the detailed form required for the district health office. I got the form from more than one system to verify I had the right one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What the report requires is the result of counting cases, quarantining of students and staff, and clusters.* This shouldn’t be a difficult thing to record on a daily basis and add up at the end of the week. The Georgia Department of Education created a video to guide school administrators on how to easily complete the form, using “Careful Recordkeeper” as the name of the school staffer filling it out. There is no sensitive or confidential data about anyone at the school required to complete this weekly report.

Dr. Nancy Kreiger at the Harvard School of Public Health recently said, “The answer to having not-good-enough data is to make it really public that it’s not good enough and to figure out, how do you make it better?” Kreiger went on to say about data, “You need good data to do proper planning, to understand what the risk is, how the risk is changing. And you need that to be real data that are publicly available and accessible.”

If a school isn’t committed to collecting accurate data, none of what they report can and should be trusted with full confidence by the state, or the people concerned about the health of every person in that school.

The responsibility of collecting good data falls on the Board of Education requiring it, and the schools led by Dr. Edmond following through.  Thousands of families in Washington County are making life and death decisions for their children and themselves during this pandemic.  For the Board of Education, Dr. Edmond, and school leaders to be satisfied with a refusal to collect good data and share it with families is not only a disservice to Washington County families. It shows a huge distain for the exhausted healthcare providers and DPH staffers working in the county and across our state.

*From GA DPH, “Laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 in two or more people [students or staff] with symptom onset/collection dates within a 14 day period who are epidemiologically linked, do not share a household, and were not identified as close contacts of each other in another setting during standard case investigation or contact tracing”).

Public schools are stonewalling their communities on Covid-19

Earlier this week the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s article Families press schools to show  virus data  proved me wrong in thinking that I am the only person bothered by the lack of information being provided to parents, teachers, students, and taxpayers from their local school boards. The lead feature coverage focused on a rural county not too far from Washington County, Georgia, where I am invested in the success of the public schools as a taxpayer and grandparent.

Last month I emailed the Washington County School Board members and Superintendent about where they are providing updates to the community on exposure to the Coronavirus and any confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the schools. To date, all the board office has said is that they have “fluid” benchmarks and are working with the state’s Department of Community Health.

Among their responses to my questions about informing the community about virus exposure, the Board Chair, Chris Hutchings, asked if I might be able to identify and help secure funding for internet connectivity in the rural areas of the county. Currently the system is sending out buses with internet connectivity to serve as hot spots in rural parts of the county lacking broadband service.

Hutchings wasn’t aware of the state’s assessment of internet access published in June of this year. Thirty-seven (37) percent of Washington County residents do not have broadband access to the internet. Many areas in the county lack decent cell phone service, making the use of hot spots for access also unreliable.

I told Hutchings that while I am not well-connected to groups focused on education, I would think about where funding might be available. Having been connected to foundations through nonprofit healthcare and environmental justice work, I do know some funders who might consider a well-crafted request.

The following day I sent these questions to the Board and the Superintendent, Dr. Rickey Edmond, so that I would know where to start and best help. Options B and C encompass online learning options for families.

In making an ask, I think you need to have at hand:

    • Number of students total, and per school
    • Number of students learning remotely- Option B and Option C
    • Number of students who chose option
    • Number of students in class because they don’t have internet access
    • Number of students without internet who are doing options B or C
    • Number of students with internet
    • Number of teachers without internet
    • Number of computers loaned to students
    • Number of computers loaned to teachers
    • Number of students who didn’t turn in final packets in the spring
    • Number of students who simply disappeared in the spring

I received this reply from Dr. Edmond:

Hi.

We have this data and monitor it yearly to assess functional levels, operations, and effectiveness. We are one-to-one with our devices for our students. We have a great IT Team and support staff to address parents’ needs when there is an issue with connectivity. I recommend you and your organization take on the task of helping the rural schools get state and federal funding for connectivity in rural America.

Thank you for sharing,

RE

So to recap, the Superintendent, whose Board chair asked for my help to  secure badly needed funding for internet access, gave me and my “organization” marching orders to secure what they said they need, but without any data. I belong to some environmental groups, and a homeowner’s association, but those aren’t the organizations that are going to pony up to help a rural school system provide web connectivity for the schools.

All of this data should be easily at hand if the system has such a solid grasp on all of its IT needs. I sent my questions to a journalist  beyond the confines of Washington County who has covered issues in the area, and access to school data in other Georgia school systems, to see if they had difficulty securing information. My hunch was right-this data should be easy to compile and readily available.

A few weeks ago I sent a Georgia Open Records Act (GORA) with the same questions I had raised when I was asked to help, with data points from August 7, 2020, the first day of in-class instruction, and September 8, 2020 for comparison. If they wouldn’t voluntarily provide the data Edmond has assured me they have at hand since the pandemic began, I could press the issue with a GORA request.

Edmond replied, “The cost will be an hourly rate of $46.33, minus the first quarter hour. It will take 16 hours to complete all the requested task and total cost will be $729.70. We are requesting the payment be made in advance before the retrieval process is activated because the total amount will exceed $500.”

Do the custodial staff, cafeteria workers, paraprofessionals, and teachers make anything close to $46.33 an hour, even with benefits? And why would it take 16 hours to put this information together if they are consistently monitoring these things?

I’m steadily losing confidence in what the Washington County School Board knows about how their students are learning, how teachers can support students and parents if/when the schools have to be closed this year, and how they are going to ensure that students receive the materials and instruction they need to stay or exceed their grade level.

My property tax bill is on my desk now, $737.34 of which goes directly to the school system’s maintenance and operations funds. The data I am requesting should guide the system’s budgeting and expectations of taxpayers’ dollar. The system should be making a case for their funding by sharing the data without reservation.

Contracts, consultants, and hotel bills

Note concerning documents: some of the documents I am posting pertaining to Washington County Regional Medical Center and the Washington County Board of Commissioners have notes and underlined portions. I have not marked up any of the documents, they are uploaded exactly as I received them. All documents here and in a February 15, 2015 post on Rural and Progressive were obtained through Georgia Open Records Act requests.

Sometimes the best way to solve a problem is to have a fresh pair of eyes look things over. In September 2014 the Washington County Board of Commissioners (WCBOC)  received a contract from consultant Alan Richman, the President and CEO  at InnoVative Capital(IC).  Richman offered to assess and advise on several areas of hospital operations.

On October 9, 2014, Board of Commissioner Chair Horace Daniel signed the contract (InnoVative_Capital_contract_Sept_2014) . The contract detailed seven tasks for Richman to complete:

  • Hospital Financial and Operational Review
  • Staffing Study Review
  • Review of Outstanding WCRMC Funding Requests of Washington County
  • Review and Critique Management and Consulting Proposals Received by WCRMC
  • Identification of Issues Statement
  • Produce a Strategic Roadmap of Next Steps
  • Present Finding to Washington County

The contract included the possibility of an extension through December 2015. Washington County agreed to pay a “hospital consulting fee” totaling $40,000. A non-refundable payment of $20,000 was due when the contract was signed, and the remaining $20,000 would be paid when Richman presented his findings to the county.

My Open Records Act document search included an email to former County Manager Chris Hutchings in late March 2015 from Richman detailing his suggestion that additional consultants may be required for his project here. These consultants would be “retained” by Washington County. Richman credited the county’s earlier $20,000 payment to his new contract proposal and requested an additional $10,000. On April 13, 2015 Horace Daniel signed a new agreement on the county’s behalf that included a monthly payment to IC for $7,000 plus expenses. (InnoVative_Capital_contract_April_2015)

What is especially interesting about the April 2015 contract is item 14 on page 2: “If the Transaction involves the WCRMC’s Partner’s commitment to a replacement hospital or major renovation/project (“Hospital Modernization Project”), InnoVative Capital may provide mortgage banking services for this purpose under a separate contract with the WCRMC Partner, if asked to do so by the WCRMC Partner, the Hospital Authority, or the County.”

The county’s hospital consult also does mortgage banking services.

And bonds.

Think about that for a minute.

If the county’s consultant recommends a new hospital building or major improvements, he can then step up and offer financing services. If bonds are needed, Richman’s consulting company does those too.

And there’s more.

On pages 3-4, (InnoVative_Capital_contract_April_2015) the contract spells out what Richman’s company receives in different scenarios. for example:

  • The county requires debt funding of $7-10Million, signs an “External Management Contract” or extends the Management Agreement with University, or “retention of Replacement Internal Management”

If University Hospital is the signing partner InnoVative Capital would be paid a $40,000 transaction fee.

If a partner other than University was the Partner for an External Management Contract, Richman’s company would receive an  $80,000 fee.

  • WCRMC enters into a Lease or Change of Ownership  and the county has a net debt funding requirement of less than $5Million:

If University is the Partner, InnoVative Capital receives $100,00 plus 5% times the final Net Debt Funding required < than $5M

If a Partner other than University is engaged, IC makes more money. Richman’s company would be paid $140,000 plus 5% times the final Net Debt Funding required < than $5M

Any agreement or modernization project that didn’t include University Hospital meant a bigger check from Washington County for Richman’s work.

Richman made seven trips to Washington County that cost taxpayers $14,483.45. Some of Richman’s expense reimbursements are a simple word document with no receipts attached. However, the request submitted on  June 29, 2015 reveals that Richman’s hotel of choice isn’t anywhere near Sandersville. The county’s consultant stays at the Ritz Carlton in Atlanta’s toney Buckhead district near the Governor’s Mansion, and commutes to Sandersville in a rental car. (see page 10 InnoVative_Captial_invoices)

Richman submitted another contract for his services in November of last year, one that would run from November through July 2016. Richman’s monthly consulting fee jumped from $7,000 per month to $10,000 per month, an increase of almost 43 percent. Horace Daniel committed the county to the higher monthly consulting fee when  he signed the contract on November 13, 2015. (InnoVative_Capital_contract_November_2015)

The November 2015 contract includes a list of 12 items for Richman to work through. Item 8 reads, “Identify potential partners for the County and Authority and work to make the process competitive, if possible.”

If possible.

Hospital leaders here did a call for proposals for management/lease options in the fall of 2014 from nine companies/organizations. University, Navicent Health, and Augusta University were among the nine asked to submit proposals. The resulting document includes a response from University but nothing from Navicent. Augusta University (Georgia Regents Health system at the time, still often called the Medical College of Georgia) was interested in a partnership but “without any change in management,” i.e. they didn’t want to run our hospital.
( see the last page in WCRMC_requests_for_proposals_fall_2014)

We had a plum lease agreement from University Hospital last spring that was left on the table by county leaders (University_proposal_to_WCRMC_April_29_2015). Navicent Health never made an offer last summer, which prompted local officials to pursue a partnership with Augusta University Hospital (which had already said it didn’t want to manage WCRMC).

The contract Horace Daniel signed in November includes a scope of services for Richman to complete. The resulting recommendations for the county to consider are contained in no more than two pages in a January 21, 2016 document, titled Washington County Regional Medical Center-Plan B:Repurposing WCRMC-Business Plan Development is “for discussion purposes only.”

The proposed plan development team includes two consulting firms in addition to InnoVative Capital. Richman allows for eight weeks of work. Depending on the amount of work required, the fees for the market and financial feasibility consulting firm DHG Healthcare could range from $35,000-$45,000. Adams Management Services, a capital consulting company, would ring in at $12,500. Both companies would also bill for expenses in addition to their fees.

Who would manage this project?

If you guessed Richman proposed that his company should serve as the Project Manager you would be right.

Through January 2016 Washington County taxpayers have spent $102,000 on consulting FullSizeRenderfees to InnoVative Capital. Combine those fees with $14,483.45 in travel expenses, and we’ve spent $116,483.45.

The more time I spend reading these documents, the more I scratch my head.

Of course we need a hospital here, and it should be a good one. We are fortunate to have good doctors and hospital staff who want their friends and family to receive the best care possible, at home, when they need it.

I don’t expect the bond to fail in May, and I am not suggesting that people consider voting against it.

What we need to understand as voters and property owners, is that we didn’t get to this question overnight. We are more likely to hold our local leaders accountable for our hospital’s sustainability if we know the full story.

Commissioner refuses to attend Commissioners’ meetings

Elected officials who are good at being in engaged with their constituents give up a lot of time to serve their community. On the local level in Washington County, they don’t get much money as an elected official, so there must be other factors motivating them.

Yesterday Benjamin Dotson, the county leader of the NAACP, made another respectful but powerful request that the Washington County Commission meetings be held early in the evening so that more working citizens can attend. The monthly meetings have been held at 9:00 a.m. on the second Thursday of each month “forever.”

Dotson’s request wasn’t new. That same request has been made by citizens over the course of several years, but it fell on deaf ears.

Larry Mathis 2010 WLarry Mathis, who is serving his first term as a Commissioner, once told a room full of citizens that if their concerns were really important to them, they would find a way to be there. People said they can’t afford to clock out at work and asked why they should take a day of vacation or expect a smaller paycheck because they needed, or wanted, to attend a Commissioners meeting.

Yesterday Mathis softened his stance and agreed with three other commissioners to try evening meetings.

This time it was Commissioner Melton Jones, who stunned the small group attending the Melton T Jones 2006 Wmeeting yesterday. Jones said point blank, and repeated himself, that he would not attend any Commissioners meetings due to his family and work schedule. Period. He followed up by being the only one to vote against granting a long-standing request from a broad range of citizens over several years.

So now the ball is in the public’s court. The meeting dates and times will be advertised in the local papers and on radio stations.

If citizens don’t show up we give the Commissioners our approval to meet at a time that is convenient to them, which looks like 9:00 a.m. on the second Thursday of each month.

Which would suit Commissioner Jones just fine.

Rural and Progressive

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