Correcting the Record

To:	U-32 Board Members
Subject:	Minutes of 2 October Board Meeting
Date:	5 November 2013

This memo documents certain inaccuracies in the board's minutes of its meeting on 2 October. These minutes were approved without comment or dissent during the meeting of 16 October. Consistent with the board's usual practice, no draft minutes were available for public review prior to approval.

Upon reviewing the meeting minutes after their approval and subsequent publication, one cannot help but be surprised by their distance from the actual events of the meeting. Happily, because a representative from Orca Media was present to make a video recording of the meeting, that recording can be compared with the minutes when needed to sharpen our individual recollections of the meeting. The video recording of the meeting may be publicly viewed at the Orca Media website www.orcamedia.net. As a relatively objective account of the 2 October public meeting, this recording should be permanently archived and perhaps even published (e.g., on the OrcaMedia YouTube channel) so that multiple, diversely held copies can secure its ongoing availability.

This memo addresses that portion of the meeting (under agenda item 4.2) during which Jeff Arey spoke briefly and responded to questions from the board regarding ``Technology Security.'' This portion of the meeting begins about 45 minutes and 53 seconds into the video recording and concludes about 69 minutes into the recording.

Among the most glaring inaccuracies in the board's minutes is the following passage:

Jeff Arey explained that it is relatively easy to maintain smaller systems like email servers in-house, but systems that deal with student information and the complex systems in Infinite Campus are too intricate to take care of by our in-house staff. It would also be considerably more expensive to keep and maintain the necessary computer hardware in-house.

The videotape shows that Superintendent Bill Kimball did volunteer his opinion that the support the local techs have to have is more for an SIS or customized software. However, Infinite Campus is not customized software by any reasonable definition of the term: it uniformly serves the needs of multiple school systems in 43 states. Moreover, the complexity of a well-constructed web-based SIS system, measured traditionally by lines of code, is very likely exceeded by many familiar computer applications, e.g., web browsers, office productivity suites, perhaps even commercial email servers. In most installations, these sorts of applications are successfully supported by remote interactions between the software vendor and conventionally trained IT staff.

Another inaccuracy in the minutes relates to physical climate and physical security. Jeff said that currently all email and print servers are housed in an air-conditioned office (as were servers for the MMS Generations student information system, which previously served the school for many years). Jeff said that he was "relatively uncomfortable" with the level of physical security at the office but also remarked that we could always buy locks to address that (59:56). Jeff's conversation with the board carefully evaluated the current in-house server hosting environment as it relates to local application needs. The minutes effectively ignore that careful evaluation in favor of incorrect, uninformed conclusions. Consider the sentence

In addition, we do not have the physical climate control and office security capabilities at U-32 that a company like Infinite Campus has.

Additionally troubling is that the minutes suppress substantive technical content in favor of less relevant marketing testimonials for the Infinite Campus software.

On one hand, in a special meeting segment devoted to the security, technical feasibility, and cost of locally hosting student records, it is surprising that remarks or questions from participants about technically substantive matters are selectively reported. For example, although board member Emily Goyette posed at least four questions (51:00, 55:00, 59:50, 66:14), none are attributed to her. How would a reader of the minutes know that these questions were asked or determine how or whether those questions were answered? How could a reader interpret whatever answers might have been provided when they are dissociated from the context of the prompting question. Similarly, at about 56:30, board member Jonathan Goddard asks two questions, only one of which is recorded. His first question relates to the cost of locally hosting student records, and Jeff answers that question by referring to estimates he has obtained from Infinite Campus. Jonathan also asks about how required reports are generated, and Jeff indicates that these are prepared and formatted locally from information gathered from ``a variety of sources'' via SQL queries and other means. This question and answer are not reported in the minutes, although it bears significantly upon the question of local hosting.

On the other hand, while discussion of substantive technical matters goes unrecorded, fully a third of what is recorded in the minutes are evaluations of the popularity of the Infinite Campus product, without clear connection to the question of local hosting. At 61:47, Guidance Director Lisa LaPlante, unprompted by any question from the board, volunteered praise for the Infinite Campus scheduling software. In response to a question from board member Kari Bradley (62:32) about the frequency of outsourced data, Superintendent Bill Kimball reported on the relative popularity of different SIS solutions. Reported in the minutes were parent JXXX RXXXX's positive comments (68:12), based on a week of experience, about the parent portal. Unreported in the minutes were his negative comments about Google Apps.

As you know, the board has been struggling for months to understand the technical feasibility and cost of locally hosting student records. The board specially asked for this presentation from Jeff Arey to help address that question. Although Jeff gave thoughtful answers to all of the board's questions, the adopted minutes distort his relatively clear account. Although board minutes need (ought?) not be stenographic transcriptions, when completely imaginative passages appear, or juxtapositions of text that give an obviously incorrect impression of the discussion, when tangential exchanges are reported at length and more directly relevant discussion is either unattributed or unreported, we risk basing important policy decisions on distorted information.