Fairfield school board hears complaints about direction of district

FAIRFIELD — The Fairfield Community School District Board of Directors had a full house for its board meeting on Monday night, when community members showed up to opine about the direction of the school district.

During the public comment portion of the meeting, seven people spoke, including parents, former teachers and current teachers about concerns they had with declining enrollment and teacher morale. Due to the large number of people who had filled out a request to speaker, board president Christi Welsh announced at the start of public comment that she would give speakers three minutes each. This caused considerable anger among some of the speakers, who expected to have five minutes each.

One of the speakers was Brittney Tiller, who has three children, two of whom are school-age. She said the form she filled out before the meeting indicated she would have five minutes, so she prepared a speech that lasted exactly five minutes, which she had to change at the last minute.

Tiller said that she’s been hearing that a growing number of teachers are dissatisfied with the direction of the district, so she and a few other people sought to survey the teachers. Tiller said the survey was conducted anonymously, and was kept open for six days, ending on Sunday, April 23. The survey received 81 responses to the five questions that were asked, as well as comments from teachers about how they felt about the district’s leadership.

Tiller presented the results of the survey to the school board Monday. The survey data she presented showed that, of the 81 responses, 90 percent of them said the district was moving in a negative direction. Survey respondents were asked to rate on a scale of 1-5 how satisfied they were with Superintendent Laurie Noll, and 59 (73 percent) answered 1, the “not satisfied” answer.

Noll was not present at Monday’s meeting because she had taken a leave of absence under the Family Medical Leave Act.

Tiller asked the board to perform a “common sense evaluation” on Noll’s performance by speaking to teachers, building administrators, parents and community members.

“A common sense evaluation should already be happening,” Tiller said. “It’s not a large request. Any business would already be doing it, evaluating the top leader in their organization.”

Lezlie Eland was another of the speakers, and she is a former teacher who taught in the district for 33 years at Lockridge and Pence. She asked the board to give a vote of “no confidence” in Noll.

“I’m really worried about the district, about having enough teachers,” Eland said. “Teachers are leaving our district, and it’s too late to get some of them back because they’ve already accepted other positions.”

Dane Kool, an assistant football coach for Fairfield, said the district needs to address its declining enrollment. He recommended the district give the families who are leaving an “exit interview” to discover why they are open enrolling their children out of the district. He said that, eight years ago, the district had 134 students enroll into the district, and 88 enroll out, for a net open enrollment of plus-46. However, he said the district is now a net loser of students to open enrollment.

“Our numbers show 114 coming in and 197 going out, that’s negative 83 students,” Kool said. “That’s $664,000 leaving.”

Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com