Swing district state Rep. Clarice Navarro, R-Pueblo, is sponsoring an education bill that aims to spotlight administrator pay at schools and in school districts that are struggling to meet minimum state performance standards.

House Bill 1162 is set to be heard by the House Education Committee Monday. It would require school boards to give advance public notice and hold public meetings when considering boosting the salaries of district superintendents or principals or vice principals in any district or at any school that has been placed on one of the state’s “priority improvement” or “turnaround” plans.

“There are 180 schools in Colorado that are in failing status,” Navarro told The Colorado Statesman. “In my district, we have 19 of those schools. I think it’s important that our communities are aware of school status, how it’s affecting our kids and why our principals, superintendents, CFOs continue to get raises when we are in a failing status. I’m not sure the public is aware.”

Navarro is serving her second term representing House District 47, which runs east and west of Pueblo. She won her seat in presidential-election-year 2012 by 1,200 votes. She has been a sort of dream politician for a state Republican Party that has struggled to win over young people, ethnic minorities and women. Navarro is all three and she doesn’t shy from taking up issues in which she can celebrate individual responsibility and public accountability. Pass or fail, she’ll surely be touting this bill on the stump this year in a state where education politics have come to dominate local elections.

But a group that represents school administrators told The Statesman that the bill would do more harm than good. They said it oversimplified the issues it aims to address and it will work mainly to dissuade qualified principals and administrators from taking difficult jobs at low-performing schools and districts where their experience is most needed.

Ignacio School District Superintendent Rocco Fuschetto received a $5,000 raise in fiscal year 2014 and a $2,000 raise in fiscal year 2015. His salary and raises are detailed in public records that Navarro requested when she was considering running her bill. It was one of the requests she filed for records on school districts across the state that are operating under improvement plans.

Fuschetto said his pay increases were part of a salary schedule that was established when he was hired six years ago and that the $2,000 increase in 2015 was a less than the $5,000 he had been scheduled to make.

Fuschetto said it was unfair to characterize the Ignacio schools as failing. He described a host of issues his students face that makes it difficult for them to do well on the state’s standardized tests. He invited Navarro and any other lawmakers who might be interested to visit his district. He notes that Ignacio is home to a little more than 700 residents and hosts a student population that is largely Native American and Hispanic.

“This is performance pay basically,” Fuschetto said about Navarro’s bill. “But I keep saying this continuously: (Poor performance on) one test doesn’t mean that the Ignacio School District is a bad school district. Forty percent of my students are Native Americans and there is research out there that shows Native Americans learn differently. Standardized tests are not written for Native American students or minority students.

“The more important issue (legislators) need to deal with is the whole school finance issue,” Fuschetto added. Solving the widely acknowledged school funding shortage in Colorado would be a more effective way of addressing school shortcomings “than to just pick on administrators of schools that are really working to improve and without knowing what the community is like.”

Navarro concedes that the issue is complicated and the challenges are real but she thinks transparency and greater community accountability will help.

“It’s absolutely vital that our communities know what is going on in our schools, know that our students are in failing school districts and our administrators continue to get pay raises while our kids are being held in a failing status. It’s just not acceptable,” she said.

Bruce Caughey, executive director of the Colorado Association of School Executives, of which Fuschetto is a member, said the one reliable effect of the Navarro bill would be to drive experienced administrators away from troubled schools.

“First of all, I’d be really interested in hearing what the theory of action is in terms of improving a school by adding one more barrier to securing a good leader for that school,” Caughey said. “It’s difficult enough for veteran principals to take on underperforming schools. I know for certain that it would make experienced professionals think twice before taking on a school in this category.”

Caughey also said it could open up administrators to disgruntled employees using the process to complain about an administrator’s efforts to change the culture and direction of a school.

Navarro said Thursday that she reached out this week to the Colorado Department of Education for feedback on her bill but had yet to hear back.

Jeremy Meyer, spokesman for CDE said the state board hasn’t yet taken a position on the bill, but he said the salaries of school officials are set entirely by local communities and the local school boards. “The CDE plays no role in setting those,” he said.

Navarro hopes seasoned administrators will continue to take on difficult jobs, but at the end of the day, she said, making sure that poor-performing schools were being transparent about pay rates and that parents had a say in how money was being spent was the most important thing.

“It’s public record, anyone can look at it, so it’s not in the intent of the bill to hurt a failing school,” she said. “Maybe (parents) think the money would be better spent inside the classroom, on books, on smartboards.”

She said her bill doesn’t seek in any way to thin local administrative control.

“It’s still the school board’s discretion (to increase pay). All I am saying is let the public have more awareness.”

— ramsey@coloradostatesman.com