Tom Phillips weighs in

Watkins Glen Superintendent touches on shared services, merger, enrollment, the Middle School's future, and school spirit -- as embodied by those bleachers

(Watkins Glen School District Superintendent Tom Phillips has been on the job for a year-and-a-half -- time enough to fight a few fights and get a good sense of the direction in which the district is headed. He sat down in the district office with The Odessa File editor and submitted to a few questions. Here are the results.)

Odessa File: There’s a movement afoot -- not just in school districts, and not just in this school district -- to help cut down costs to taxpayers. I know you’re into this shared services concept.

Phillips: Governor Spitzer has a Task Force on Consolidated Services and Shared Municipal Agreements. It’s a way of containing costs, and that’s really their target: How do we make government more efficient? I’m proud to say Watkins Glen has shared a fuel facility with the county and other towns for years. That agreement, years and years ago, was cutting edge. No one else in the state ever had anything like it. Others since have joined on.

One thing we have going on right now is the Shared Records Storage Facility in the old bus garage. Construction is currently under way with that. We’ve awarded the bids. And that’s with the county and the village and other municipalities within the region for sharing of their records. And we -- by that I mean the Board of Education -- just signed on to be part of a municipal agreement for shared service of the town or village barn -- I’m not sure which it is, at the old fairgrounds. They’re looking to do some reconstruction, and we’re looking to be part of that with them so that we get some storage space, and in return they can use our bus garage and bus lifts for mechanics and that kind of stuff dealing with their various vehicles.

The day and age is here where every leader of any public organization has to look at containing costs. And we have a responsibility to our community to explore sharing of cost, consolidation of services, and of maintaining the quality that we provide them. I’m not suggesting that we eliminate anything. What I’m saying is we need to give the community the skinny -- the information on here’s what it would look like, and they have to make the decisions. If they choose to go the more expensive route, then our job is to implement it. But we have to be upfront with our communities and say, “Here it is. Here’s what shared services will do. Here’s how it impacts you. Do you want us to stay separate, or do you want us to look at more consolidation?”

Odessa File: When you’re talking more consolidation, is merger working its way into the vocabulary?

Phillips: I think at some point, that’s part of the whole discussion. Do we continue with shared service agreements, or do we move in the direction of consolidating? We don’t make that decision. We need to be the ones who provide the information to the community in a transparent way so that it ultimately is their call. They’re the ones who will make the decision, and then it’s our job to implement it. To not even approach that subject or to share information that could help people make a decision would, I feel, be irresponsible and show lack of leadership.

Odessa File: Has there been any discussion by the board or between you and the board regarding merger?

Phillips: No, there really hasn’t. Have we discussed sharing services? Absolutely. Any time we get into anything we talk about shared services. But about a merger specifically, no. There really hasn’t been. But I have to say, again, it’s the responsibility of leadership to lay out all of the scenarios by providing that information to your community, allowing them to make an educated and informed decision as to what route we take. And I’m certainly not suggesting that we do any kind of merger, but as we look at shared services, part of that becomes, okay, so if we’re sharing all these services, why are these entities maintaining their separateness.

Odessa File: The closest district, traditionally, has been Odessa-Montour. Now, they declined to go into an Indoor Track program with Watkins Glen , but they are utilizing your Universal Pre-K facilities. Are there any other shared services going on between the two districts?

Phillips: Not at this point. However, I think the issue for me becomes you make the opportunities available and each community has to make their own decision. The Universal Pre-K has turned out to be a wonderful joint effort between Odessa and Watkins Glen. It goes back to how much the community is willing to contribute to maintain what it is they have. And can we give them more for less. Can we become more efficient by either sharing services or merging programs. Those are the questions that have to be asked, and then the information has to be provided so that the community can make an educated decision. Right now with Bradford, we’re looking at doing some distance learning through satellite linking, with a class being taught in Watkins Glen, and kids at Bradford actually participate. We’re looking at a 21st Century Grant with Odessa, Bradford and Watkins Glen all collaborating on providing our kids with wraparound support. The federal government’s going to release their Request for Proposals in late January. We’re all going to meet and discuss that. You can’t look at shared services, you can’t look at consolidation of efforts without looking at cost/benefit. You’ve gotta look at your cost analysis, you’ve gotta look at the responsibility we have to be as efficient as possible with other people’s money. That’s the bottom line. The other people are the community that we serve.

Odessa File: I want to discuss school spirit. The bleachers on the south end of the (Field House) gym have come under fire from at least one opposing coach. You had an IAC official present to observe. He gave you high marks for school spririt. He had some reservations, I believe, about how the bleachers were utilized during free throws. What’s your take on what’s going on in the Field House?

Phillips: I have to say: In this day and age, in the current climate of our society, the fact that we have 16-, 17-, 18-year-old kids dressing up and putting war paint on and coming to a game to support their peers in my opinion speaks very highly of the climate that has been created in this school district. Kids feel that they belong. And you can’t ask more from a school district than that. The Field House is a beautiful facility, and the fact is that we use it as a venue for athletics and also as a venue for building school spirit. If that’s our charge, then I am guilty as charged.

Are there issues? Sometimes there are. But I have to say anytime any issue has been brought to the attention of a monitor, of an administrator, of a school official, or of a sports official, the kids have adhered to the requests without confrontation. And without question. I know the issue out there is there is a perception that we -- and by that I mean district officials -- are condoning negative behavior, and that could not be further from the truth.

Odessa File: Along those lines, you have a portable tunnel now, which I think the kids love. Where did that come from?

Phillips: My understanding is it came through our Student Council funds. The kids proposed to the Student Council the purchase of this tunnel. They used the parliamentary process and procedure to get their request to the student body as a whole and to their representatives, and the Student Council approved the purchase of the tunnel. And under the direction of Mr. Cheplick, the tunnel has arrived and been assembled and is now being used. That speaks to the effort the district is making to create that sense of belonging that is critical to kids, especially in the current climate in which they are growing up. And by providing the bleachers, by providing the interactive sound system, by providing interactive engagement of the crowd in the game, that all creates a sense of family -- that I believe is very positive.

Can kids get carried away with it? Absolutely. But as long as they respond appropriately with requests to correct whatever behavior that is seen as not proper, then I’m fine with it. If they become confrontational, I have absolutely no problem addressing that. But they haven’t been. They have responded positively to any request made of them. They meet with the building principal. They meet with the faculty manager. We review expectations. These are not rogue children misbehaving. These are a group of kids that really embody the meaning of school spirit.

Odessa File: I want to back up to your early days. When you came on board, you hit some pretty big waves. You had a confrontation with a coach, you had some drinking problems with students, FLACRA got involved. Is that all in your rearview now? What’s the status of the behavior of the school’s students?

Phillips: You live and you learn. We completely revised our Student Code of Conduct to include expectations for coaches, to include expectations for parents. We are holding annual meetings for parents, we’re holding seasonal meetings for coaches regarding the new Code of Conduct. I really think we have turned the corner. And I think you’re right. In bringing up the fact of where we were to where we are -- when you look where we were a year ago, we were talking about kids engaging in not only inappropriate behavior, but very dangerous behavior. We now have kids taking time to dress up to come to sporting events to support their peers on a Friday night. I think that speaks very highly of the change that has occurred in a relatively short period of time. That is not to say there aren't issues which the school and community might still need to collaborate on.

Odessa File: And how has the change been accomplished exactly?

Phillips: I think it was accomplished through a collaborative effort of the staff, of the community, of the kids who I believe -- and I am making some assumptions -- but I believe we have made connections to kids, with kids. Kids feel they are heard. Kids understand the adult expectations. Kids understand we are here to support them. But really, it is about kids. And they understand that everything we do here is about them and giving them every opportunity to be a positive part of our organization and to work very hard to ensure that they will be successful in their time here at the district.

Odessa File: The Middle School is an energy drain, not terribly in favor with anyone I’ve spoken to. But at this point it has to be utilized. What’s down the road for that?

Phillips: Well, when you look at its future, we are doing our best at this point to put in upgrades so that at least the electrical-heating facility itself is in good repair. We’re repairing all of the student bathrooms, we’re adding some additional security, upgrading some technology, replacing some floors. The problem we have at the Middle School is, because of its mode of construction, there is no opportunity to renovate or reorganize the facility itself. You have what you have. You can only modify through upgrades. You can’t reconfigure that building. And those constraints put real constraints on what the future holds for that building, and what we can do to maintain any kind of economical efficiency in heating and lighting and just keeping the building up and running.

And again, that goes back to consolidation. Consolidation can be intradistrict consolidation. Do we look at building wings and making this a one-campus facility? Well, you have to look at projections ten years from now, what student enrollment is going to be. And then you go closing a building and adding on over here, and all of a sudden, seven years from now, you reach capacity and people are going “Whose harebrained scheme was that?” So I mean that’s the kind of thing you have to take in: Where are we? What are the projections? That’s gonna take some in-depth study. Because it’s going to take that kind of work doesn’t mean we don’t do it. It means we do (the study) and then present the information to the community and say “Where do you want to go here? Give us some direction. Here’s what we’re thinking, because we’ve had the architect, we’ve had the demographer, we’ve talked with the county, we’ve talked with the village, we’ve included all of our partners. Now here’s the information. Here’s what we’re thinking. Community, what do you think?”

So consolidation doesn’t have to be between two districts. It can be within your own district so that you become more efficient within your district. That doesn’t exclude other districts, either. The Middle School is something that sooner or later the community is going to have to make some decisions about how far we go. We are upgrading, and right now it’s serving its purpose. But you get to a point in the usefulness of the structure when you say “Okay, we can’t run wiring because the concrete walls are three feet thick . We can’t run wiring through them. We can’t knock walls down because they’re the structural support." You have to start asking yourself: “Why are we doing this?” And what is the most cost-effective way of creating a positive learning environment for kids?

Odessa File: You touched on security, a popular term lately. What is going on in terms of security upgrades in the district -- specifically with this building (the high school)?

Phillips: What we’re really looking to do is monitor entrances and exits, looking to have a restrictive access to the building, if you will, and I don’t mean that in a negative tone.

It really is about protecting kids. That’s the bottom line. And protecting assets. Once the kids leave the building at three or four o’clock, the building still needs to be monitored. We have swimming pools, gyms, etcetera, and the last thing we need to do is increase our liability by not monitoring who comes and goes. So one of the things we’re going to do is monitor all of the entrances with video cameras. We’re going to monitor the entrance and exit to each building. You’re going to have to ring a doorbell or whatever so that the secretary gets the message that someone’s at the door. You’ll have to tell them who you are and why you’re there. But it’s not about “We don’t want you here.” We do want you here. We want the community here as much as possible, and we want you engaged with your kids. What we don’t want is unfettered access to our children.

And once our children are out of here, we have a liability issue at three or four o’clock in the morning -- where we have no record of who came and went ... or of what, if any, issue should arise overnight. At least this will provide us a documented record of what happened -- who went, who arrived.

Perhaps we catch somebody in the act. But really, it’s about safety and security of kids, and minimizing our liability -- and ultimately the community’s liability in the evenings and unscheduled times.

Odessa File: You mentioned enrollment projections. What’s the current enrollment and what are the projections, and how far do you project?

Phillips: Right now we’re around 1,350 K-12 students. Really the only way you project is by looking at the demographics behind you and then looking at the economy and any projected housing additions, etcetera. You study what population has moved into the county versus what population has left, and then you make some projections based on that.

One of the issues that we’re struggling with in Watkins Glen is you have the Town of Hector and you have the Village of Watkins Glen itself who are showing great potential for economic growth, both in commercial property and in residential property. Until all of that comes to light, it’s very hard to make a prediction about what might happen.

So with the hotel going in, that’s obviously commercial property -- but someone’s gotta manage the place, people have to clean the place, people have to serve in the restaurant. So does that mean we get additional families into the community and if so, what families, and who do they bring with them, and all that kind of additional data that we will have to consider. Also, you have the housing project going in at the end of the lake. That’s the other question. So now we have these townhouses. Does this mean that we’re going to have upwardly mobile young people coming in and executives, or are families going to move into these townhouses? These are all questions we have to look at.

The Town of Hector -- they’re really on the cusp of doing some development. People are really looking into moving into that area. And when you see that the wine industry and the tourism industry are really coming to light, does that mean more families are going to move into the region -- and into the district? So how does that impact where we go five, seven, ten, fifteen years from now? Those are the questions. When you look at the whole issue of consolidation and merging, and I said this earlier, you don’t want to close the building to find out five years from now “Ohmigod, what a bonehead move was that.” Because all of a sudden your population starts to go up, now you run out of room, and people are saying “What were you thinking?” So that’s all the data you kind of have to sift through, and then you present the picture to the public and say “Where to you want us to go?”

Odessa File: Do you have any projections for down the road? In comparison to the 1,350?

Phillips: Looking at very preliminary data, my first blush is that we will show some moderate increases in population growth -- in our student population. And that will be from whatever economic development is under way or housing that’s coming in. You can’t have a hundred-room hotel open, you can’t build those townhouses and not expect some impact, some families to move into your district. So I think you will see some moderate increases.

The question becomes: Okay, so the hotel opens, the housing project goes up. Is there something else coming? And then is there something else behind that? You have to work with the county people, the village people, the towns’ people, and really forecast where we will be in 2020, and how do we prepare for that? And then you hope that the forecasting is correct.

Odessa File: Trumansburg School District has joined with Watkins in creation of the Twisted Relays track meet every year. It’s always been held here, but it’s been a joint venture. Are there any other joint ventures envisioned with Trumansburg beyond sports -- or in sports, for that matter?

Phillips: Well, one of the things we did this year -- and it was generated through a safe-driving group from Trumansburg, a parental group -- we joined with them to provide a Street Survivor driver safety course up at Watkins Glen International. That was clearly a collaborative effort between the Trumansburg parents and district and Watkins Glen. I’m willing to look at sharing and working with, collaborating with other districts to provide opportunities for our kids that we’re not able to provide on our own. That was an opportunity that came to us through a parental concern and a parental group, and we jumped on board. That was a very productive and positive joint venture between Trumansburg and us. So again, I am always open to opportunities and joint ventures that will expand what we can provide for kids.