Email Doesn’t Make It; Districts Can’t Take It

On Wednesday, State Superintendent Tom Luna submitted a request for a 5 percent increase in the education budget for the 2012 school year. That equates to almost $62 million, but some administrators are saying it is too little, too late, and they feel out of the loop.

There was supposed to be a conference call for all district superintendents statewide Wednesday afternoon to talk about the requested increase, but some did not get the email about the conference until after the call started.

“I’m not really sure what happened this afternoon because at 2:12 p.m. we got an email from Superintendent Luna’s office, saying that there were attachments relative to a conference call that started at 2:00 p.m. that we were not notified about,” said Pocatello-Chubbuck School District Superintendent Mary Vagner.

Vagner was not on the conference call, but she was confused, especially because the media knew about the request before she did. News reporters received a press release about the requested increase at 12:16 p.m.

Superintendents received another email about a half-hour after the first email, saying there had been technical difficulties and that a second call would be scheduled for 3 p.m. Thursday.

The communications director for the Department of Education, Melissa McGrath, said it did send out an email about the call on Tuesday, but that this kind of problem happens every year.

“Every August and September, we send emails. We get calls that they didn’t get notifications. It’s just a process that over the next month we’re going to have to update contact information,” McGrath said. New email servers or firewalls are usually to blame, she said.

But Vagner said the increase will not amount to much because salary cuts will continue to grow while the 5 percent will stay stagnant. She said the email mix-up is just another example of the superintendent’s inability to communicate.

“I wonder about the importance of a need to communicate with the constituents who are doing the work at the building and district levels,” Vagner said.

Chuck Shackett from the Bonneville School District did not receive the email until after the call started, either, but he is not blaming Tom Luna. The State Department of Education is full of good people and it was probably just a technological error, Shackett said.

The increase itself is supposed to offset the permanent salary cuts that came from the Pay for Performance aspect of the Students Come First legislation. About 2.4 percent will go to salaries, and another 2 percent will be for discretionary funds.