“A FAILURE OF GOVERNANCE”?
June 30, 2009 at 1:07 pm 2 comments
One of the last and most forceful speakers at Monday night’s school board meeting reminded the Board that “it’s all about the money”; made the accusation that “you just don’t get it” (meaning the Board and the significance of the money issue); and pronounced that the handling of the Rhonda Cohen position and promotion was “a failure of governance.”
Do you agree or disagree with the speaker? Do you feel that the school board deeply understood the community’s message?
Another called for a Web site where the discussion on the topic could continue. Let’s do that here. Please use the light green ADD COMMENT link below to add your further messages to the Board.
–Posted by Karen Cure
Entry filed under: Assistant Superintendent Position, School Budget, School Taxes. Tags: .
1.
Karen Cure | July 2, 2009 at 12:00 am
David, thanks for responding. Once again I was amazed, impressed, and humbled by the intelligence and expressiveness of my fellow townspeople.
I have attended quite a few school board meetings during the past year and have been struck by a quality of clubbiness about them. This is perhaps inevitable, given how much time they spend together. But my perception is that they speak their own language, tinged by educationese, and do not realize that they are not talking plain English. (As an aside, I wondered what percentage of the audience understood the phrase “differentiated instruction”–what do you think?) Thus the communications gap. It persisted during the meeting Monday until Eileen Baecher so clearly outlined the specific reasons she voted to approve the appointment. “Ah, at last real talk!” I thought to myself.
I work on grants proposals connected with federal AIDS funding, and every time our organization asks for money from taxpayers (via the government), we have to not only outline the proposal in detail, but also specify outcomes and identify specific performance measures. Grantors also expect complete job descriptions, so that those reviewing a funding request can evaluate the plan. During various school conversations, including the one on Monday night, I have often suspected an absence of such methodical thinking in the district. What were the outcomes and performance measures for the adoption of the Blackboard program, the adoption of the director of curriculum job, almost anything that’s discussed at BOE meetings? I also suspect that clear, organized job descriptions do not exist. If we had clear descriptions of the job of school principal and assistant principal, we might not be in a position of having hired individuals who–however irresistible–may lack abilities needed to do the job without a huge amount of mentoring. In addition, if there had been a curriculum director job description, it might have been clear that the scope of work being asked of the job after these hires were made was vastly different than the original scope of work, and thus the need for a promotion would have been clear. I don’t know for a fact that these job descriptions don’t exist, but I suspect not, because Jane Cody, of this blog, put quite a bit of effort into obtaining them and, I believe, had still not seen them after a week of asking both Dr. Shaps and David Hayes.
Whatever the outcome of this meeting, I have to commend the school board for holding the discussion. It will be interesting to watch the evolution of the decision and of the board with Gabrielle at the head and Wendy Naidich in the mix. Hopefully, change will come for the better, despite the economy.
2.
David Skolnik | July 1, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Karen -
As I did in fact bemoan the absence of a means of continuing a community forum, it would be hypocritical of me to ignore the opportunity you have extended with this blog. Nevertheless, I wonder at the significance of the fact that no one else has responded…whether out of lack of awareness of the blog itself, lack of time, ambivalence about the subject or about blogging itself. Trying to establish something of this sort seems an act of faith in need of a good dose of PR.
With regard to your question, while I appreciate Ted Mason’s passion and projection, anger and eloquence were evident in many of the evening’s comments. I think it was made clear, however, that money was only part of the issue. People are upset about many aspects of the process and, based either upon this most recent episode or upon their own previous experiences, distrustful of what they are being told.
”Failure of Government”, while catchy, doesn’t mean anything to me. I do believe that the School Board was listening and understood the community’s message. What I’m not sure of is whether the community itself understands the community’s message. We want the schools to be great, both for our kids and for the attractiveness of the community, but we don’t want to acknowledge that that costs money and that, totally beyond the control of the school, that expense is supported mostly by property taxes. Some people like the schools the way they are; some think they need to continue trying to improve. Are we really willing to be quoted in the Enterprise as saying that our schools are ‘good enough’?
I would like to see a rational decision based upon a thorough evaluation of:
- need for the position of curriculum director
- means by which such position’s initiatives and the effectiveness of the individual director can be assessed
- costs (immediate and long term) for previous position and for proposed new position (Asst. Superintendent)
While I am concerned about allegations that the original selection process was unfairly manipulated, I think that this becomes relevant after the previous questions are addressed and, unless gross improprieties discovered, of greater use in refining the reliability, responsiveness and accountability of the process in the future.
I am hoping the Board finds a way to allow this assessment to occur.