A Long Strange Trip is Beginning..

Wednesday’s meeting had some news. We reviewed the board goals and had a presentation. The goals session was fairly uneventful. But the presentation had a few surprises.

It was regarding the new grade point average to be implemented this coming school year and the steps our district is taking to ensure our athletes and extra curricular students that fall below the GPA requirement receive intervention. I’m OK with that. I had some concerns that we were focusing on “participators”. By participator I mean the kids that participate in something, anything, which requires a GPA standard. By focusing on these kids I felt we were ignoring a larger part of our student population that does not participate. I was assured that this is just one of 13 legs of what will be our new intervention program. I have two problems with it.

One is that it requires hiring a new employee. No salary was suggested and a cost benefit analysis was not provided. The presenters indicated that there was an analysis done, so I look forward to reviewing it when it is provided. The second problem I have with the approach is that invention will take place before school. Now I’m no teenager but I do know one thing about being one. Getting up early sucks.

The reason for before school intervention was this- These kids have practice and games, and other activities that start right after school. In order to participate they will have to come to before school intervention. OK. So you have a carrot for this small population of our schools. What about the rest of the kids, the non-participators- that need intervention? Yes a small percentage will come if threatened by parents and teachers. But a large portion will not because they lack the parenting and discipline that is required to better ourselves. In school intervention is the common sense approach. Require that an intervention class replace an elective if your GPA is below a certain standard.

I’ll be honest, I’m tired of tax money being spent on sports and extra curricular, while the gifted programs in our district and, more importantly the gifted and talented children, are offered very little in terms of their special needs. The current proposal for intervention smells like an Activities Office program to me. Oh yeah, the new Intervention Specialist will be under the command of our Athletic Director. This should be about raising grades and bettering yourself, not ensuring eligibility. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against the intervention, just the approach offered.

Final tidbit- we gave the superintendent his evaluation. If you want some funny reading, I suggest you request it. Here are some excerpts, as usual I have comments to the comments and they are in red:

“Does not seem to have a feel for the community in general, since he does not live here. Still has problems with relations with city officials”
Is this a performance evaluation or a residence evaluation? I understand the want for a super to live here but should he evaluated for it? Make it a goal and a policy change, then an issue on the evaluation.

“Move into community (CF school district) to show full belief in district”
What about his wife showing support for the district she works in? It doesn’t count?

“Don’t try to play god to the role of a supreme dictator”
Shame, shame, you can’t play God in a public school system. Do you want the ACLU to come knocking? And am I the only person that knows God should be capitalized?

“The superintendent should be aware of all deadlines”
OMG! I can’t even keep track of the deadlines at my kids’ school let alone every deadline set by the efficient government. Tasks with their deadlines are and should be delegated.

“Manages by fear, threat of the unknown, low staff moral”
Morale, moral what’s the difference? And how do manage by threat of the unknown if it’s unknown? I have to say, when I complained about our CEO two years ago, every staff member I talked to defended him, his character, his leadership skills, his decision making processes, in fact he was almost God-like. Hmmm…I’m starting to see a connection here. Anyway they convinced me that even though I didn't like some decisions he had made, his intentions were, and would always be what's best for CF school district.

“Show a more caring attitude”
I’m embarrassed to even have to comment on this. Our CEO is not a mother. I don’t want caring, loving, pushover CEO. I want no nonsense, tows the line, gets the job done CEO.