Simulation
Unfortunately, because of recent national gun control legislation, the major employer for your community, Uzi firearms, has decided to relocate to a more hospitable environment, Aden, South Yemen. As a result, one half of the working population of your community will lose their jobs immediately and your school will lose half of its 4.5 million dollar allocated budget. A proposal before your local board of education argues that instead of trying to create a better version of Benedict Arnold High School with half the currently available funds, the district should allow the enormously profitable company, Kids Are Us, to take over the district and run the school as it would, any of its other subsidiaries. While Kids Are Us specializes in producing and distributing educational videos and software (its most popular product is called "Tickle Me Power Ranger"), it has had no direct previous experience in operating a social service agency such as a school.
If this proposal is accepted:
1. 1/2 of all of your teachers will be fired and replaced with teacher aides.
2. The school board administration will be drastically reduced; remaining personnel will be hired by Kids Are Us. Specifically, the current superintendent will become a vice president for school operations to work under the outside appointment of a director for school operations. One of the assistant superintendents will stay on as his/her assistant, another will be reassigned to a sales position within the company or will become a high school principal. The third will be forced out altogether. The current school principal, guidance counselors, assistant principal, and all other administrators with supervisory responsibility will re-enter the classroom as teachers.
3. Your school would have the following profile:
Newly named Jean-Luc Picard High School is committed to becoming one of the better high schools in the state by emphasizing discipline and state of the art technology. The motto of the school is "A computer for every desk, a video screen at every table." By emphasizing high tech, individualized computer assisted instruction, and correspondence work through interactive t.v., the school will allow every student to grow at her or his own rate, while dramatically reducing the need for regular teachers, thus eliminating budgetary waste and inefficiency. Students will progress from class to class and grade to grade by completing sequentially structured learning modules, machine scored and graded. Every student in the school will have the opportunity to excel in a specialty of her/his choice. In the afternoons, students will gain valuable work experience by volunteering for a Kids Are Us subsidiary, learning about the world of work by packaging video games.
4. Governance
a. The operation of Jean-Luc Picard High School would be left to the Kids Are Us Corporation for a period of five years, upon which time, the state of the school will be reviewed by the Board of Education, and a new contract will be negotiated. Upon failure to negotiate a new contract, the operations of the school will then revert to the Board of Education.
b. Kids Are Us must give one year's notice if it decides to give up the operation of the school.
c. Kids Are Us gets to keep all profits obtained during its five years of school management. It must assume financial liability for any deficits that accrue during this time.
d. Once a year, the Director of School Operations will give a report to the Board of Education, detailing the progress of the school.
e. All appointments, personnel reviews, and firings including the position Director of School Operations, will be given to the Kids Are Us Corporation.
f. All curricular matters involving Jean-Luc Picard High School will be decided by administrators working for the Kids Are Us Corporation.
On December 15th, 1998, the school board will meet, first in executive session ( officially closed to the public but open to the participants of this simulation)), and then in open session, where interested members of the community, including parents, teachers and students, will give their views of the take-over proposal. Then, the Board will meet deciding the fate of the proposal and the fate of your school.
YOUR ROLE
You will be assigned a specific role in this simulation. In accordance with the description of the role, you can either support the take over of the school by Kids Are Us, or offer an alternative. You will be expected to contact other members of the school and community who may have similar interests, anticipate your opponents' tactics, and make as strong a case before the Board as possible before the Board meeting and actual vote. However, whether you support the take-over or come up with a reasonable alternative based upon the work we as a class have completed to date, you must present:
1) a written statement documenting the actions you have taken in fulfillment of your role. How have you attempted to obtain greater support for your position? What other interested parties were contacted and why? What were the results? What strategies did you develop to ensure that your position was accepted? How successful were your efforts and why? (2(1-2 pages)
PLEASE REMEMBER THAT EVERYONE MUST COMPILE A WRITTEN STATEMENT REGARDLESS OF WHETHER ONE SUPPORTS A CORPORATE TAKE-OVER OR SUPPORTS AN ALTERNATIVE.
Class Roles
5 School Board Members
a. One is the President of the Board and is interested in running for mayor. She/he can't stand the current superintendent who was appointed a year ago over her/his objections. She/he is deeply impressed with Kids Are Us' reputation as a corporation of quality and wants corporate support for her/his mayoral campaign. Kids Are Us has promised to give that support, no one else has.
b. One has been a board member for five years and in her/his official work, is a lawyer working for the Kids Are Us chief competitor, True Value Kids. His/her job is to oppose this take-over at any cost.
c. One is a newly elected board member whose brother owns Kids Are Us. She/he is very close to the assistant superintendent for curriculum but doesn't have close ties to established Board members or the superintendent. She wants this take-over to succeed.
d. One has been on the Board for three years and is deeply worried about the future of the school, given budget shortfalls. He/she will not vote for any proposal that does not honestly come to terms with financial issues without taking too much power away from the people.
e. One is deeply concerned about the lack of school discipline and will do anything to create a school which is safe and secure, where students can learn.
3 teachers
a. One is a union representative who believes in protecting teacher rights at all costs.
b . One is an untenured teacher, new to the district, who has little chance of staying if proposed budget cuts are enacted and the school remains in operation in its current form. As she/he has a degree in educational technology, the possibility of working at a Jean-Luc Picard High School is intriguing. She/he is trying to secure her future by talking to others about her/his options.
c. One is the football coach who has built a winning record at Benedict Arnold High and doesn't want to see his program go down the tubes with the take over. However, the possibility of obtaining a Kids Are Us shoe contract is quite attractive to him.
1 Superintendent
Relatively new to the district, the current superintendent is just getting her/his feet wet and this crisis occurs. She/he knows that there are problems in the district but does not want to become a subservient flunkee in the corporate structure which will almost certainly occur if the takeover is approved. She/he knows that the school board president can't be trusted, and is trying to feel out other members of the board. She/he has some unflattering information that can be used in support of her/his position.
1 Kids Are Us Lawyer
Must present the best case scenario for the take-over. Mentions how successful Kids Are Us has been with other school district take-overs and notes that the company's profit margin has increased by at least 10% every year for the last five years. Notes that with the growth of the charter school movement, private enterprises and parents all over the country are becoming involved in education. This is a distinct opportunity for the community. She/he must do anything to get the board to pass this resolution because she/he was recently fired as attorney for Channel One and this is her/his last hope.
1 School District Lawyer
Has to rule on questions of legality. Is this take-over legal? Must prior judgements be settled before a take-over could occur? Is Kids Are Us a legitimate concern? Is it financially sound? She/he believes that such a take-over theoretically would be legal but is looking for loopholes as she/he is personally opposed to it.
2 Assistant Superintendents
a) Assistant Superintendent for Instruction: - Believes that curriculum must address the needs of students and is proud of the new board approved curriculum, recently developed, but not yet implemented. Is terrified of being absorbed by the corporate structure.
b.) Assistant Superintendent for Budget and Finance - Does not want to be blamed for causing the district's financial ruin, but is not crazy about corporate involvement in education either. She/he understands that there is no way the district can implement its new model school given the current budget crisis.
1 Principal
Has fought to keep the school afloat through many crises. Believes that without more personal attention, his/her students will slip through the cracks. Certainly does not want to go back into the classroom.
1 High School Guidance Counselor
He/she believes that the current principal is a moron and is trying to land a job with Kids' Are Us.
3 Parents
One is a grandmother taking care of her 17 year old daughter's child;
one parent only speaks Spanish and wants a bilingual ed. program to be in place at any cost;
one parent has a child who is ADD and want to make sure that the child will receive a decent education.
3 Students
One of the students intends to sue the district for having been beaten up at school, and is worried whether the take-over will mean that Kids Are Us won't assume liability for damages.
One of the students is afraid of losing her/his drug dealing connections if the school is taken over by Kids Are Us and has the goods on a number of community members.
One of the students is a star football player who is afraid that any change in the system will hurt his chances of obtaining a college scholarship.
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