Gray Hair Meter Currently 35%

I am not in the best spirits. I want to explain how things work in the world of school boards. You do what you can with what you’ve got. We have a divided board attempting to run a school district. But in reality the CEO runs the district and tells the board what to do. All over Ohio I see good people run for and win school board seats only to resign months later because they soon realize they cannot make a difference. They realize nothing changes. The people running our schools only want board members that are yes men.

I am going to attempt to explain what has happened in chronological order. Maybe you can understand why things happened the way they did. I read in the paper thatour CFO had applied for the job in Hudson. The board president asked the CFO what it would take to keep her. Contract negotiations begin. I tried to convince the board from the get go that if we allow one employee to hold the board hostage in this manner, others will follow. I then realized that as usual, what I think really doesn’t matter. But the one thing that was important to all was a mutual agreement was desired. A five O vote would make everyone a happy bunch. I decided that I would use this aspect to negotiate out of the wish lists all I could. Let the games begin.

We also began building tours. It was an eye opening experience. We started with elementary buildings in the Falls and went to Silver Lake last. Somewhere in the middle of tours CEO approaches the board with ultimatum. Here’s my wish list, let’s talk or I’ll walk. It was like I was dealt two nines on the black jack table and now had to split them, but the dealer has a ten and play both hands at once. But let’sget back to the buildings. Like I blogged earlier, the differences were striking. Crowded buildings and class rooms in the Falls buildings, while SL enjoys average class sizes of 19. Don’t even get me started on the cost of rewiring the building and providing the additional costs of electricity for the current and future window air conditioners. Then it is mentioned in the hallway that we bus students from SL less than a half mile away to a daycare. I can’t think of any other building in CFCSD that we do this for. But the real pisser is this. One third of SL enrollment is open enrollment. Here’s the kicker. We bring in a lesser amount of money for these kids from the state than it costs to educate them at SL elementary. Our tax money is paying to educate "outside" children when we push them to our most expensive per pupil school. I mentioned it before, but I’ll mention it again, our district would have had to shut down the SL kindergarten program had we not pushed open enrollers there. People requested buildings in the Falls but were pushed to SL. I didn’t notice any special ed programs either. Hmmm. Our largest elementary school (Lincoln) in the district has one book scanner in the library, our smallest school (SL) has three.

The board was able to meet several times on the CFO’s contract, work out an agreement that was agreeable to all and vote on it Wednesday night 5-0. I like our CFO and I believe she does a good job and works well with our CEO. I think she truly tries to work with all board members and wants us to understand what she does and how she does it. Much was negotiated out and in return I voted yes. I did what I felt was the best I could do for tax payers under the majority circumstances. As we saw with the raises handed over, the majority will do what they want regardless of how tax payers or fellow board members feel about it.

Unfortunately the CEO’s wasn’t quite so smooth. It was no fault of any one person. The board was given a deadline that was short to begin with and unforseen circumstances made proper negotiations difficult. A majority of the board was willing to give CEO more than I was comfortable with. I was told by one member on Monday that it was going to be on the agenda Wednesday whether I liked it or not. We entered executive session Wednesday and I was handed a revised copy of the contract and informed the board I was not voting on a contract I was just handed and had not reviewed and have not had a conversation with the CEO since negotiations started. I was then informed that the board would make hand written changes and strikes and vote on it this way! I couldn’t believe my ears. Some seriously wanted to vote on a scribbled on, language altered by a bic pen document. Can you say "yeah right"? I asked our CEO to withdraw his name from consideration at Copley and give us a few days to hammer out the fine points. A concern among some board members and the CEO was that if his name became public applying for this job, it would undermine employee morale. I said I would not vote no if we were granted extra time to come to an agreement that was acceptable to all as we did with the CFO’s contract. I emailed our CEO with the changes I wanted but I guess he was so busy talking to the Beacon Journal on Thursday that he couldn’t be bothered to reply to my Email. I knew then that things will remain the same. I had already given my word that I wouldn’t vote no, but I could not in good conscience vote yes.

The changes I asked for were simple. That our district stop favoring certain buildings, that unethical behaviors not be tolerated, and equal treatment and rules for board members. Not getting a reply coupled with the Beacon Journal article only reaffirmed for me what I had been trying to convince the board of all along- The board was held hostage. It worked because several board members were terrified of losing our CEO and he was well aware of this. Get it while you can, but wouldn’t a five 0 be dandy? I feel like nobody quite kept their promises and I’m tired of being one of the few people that actually tries to work with others open and honestly. Emails exchanged encouraging the hiring of friends (that end up with the job), board members hanging out in administrators offices having giggle fests, performing office duties, and forming friendships shouldn’t be tolerated. We were told in January it wouldn’t be.
I abstained so I could be true to myself and true to my word. The CEO gets a 4-0 vote for the record and all is well.

The CFO’s contract is not a renewal, just changes to the current allowing insurance to be accessed, board paid medicare (currently 1.45%) and a 2.5% annuity. The CEO’s changes from the current to the 4-year renewal are: a 3.5% annuity, board paid medicare, clarification of the duties of the CEO, an agreement that unused vacation days will not be bought out if the CEO engages in teaching during that contract year, and an agreement for the board to pay all professional and civic membership dues.