The following, as requested, can be viewed as an OPEN LETTER, and may be copied and used on any website as Open Source under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; as a whole, or may be copied in part by any News venue as you wish without citation being required.
To The Jefferson County Board of Education Members, Students and Teachers,
I keep telling myself that I'm 'just about done' and going to be back to my novel writing any day now. Not today obviously, but soon - which is also my humble way of saying, I'm not a lawyer, or a cop or a Republican or Democrat. I'm a writer. A writer who writes fiction. Thing is though, when people read my fiction, they know it is fiction. I tell them that right up front. I also dislike competition from amateurs, thus the recent activities of you and a few of your Board members has been a distraction. That and the presence of one Larry Krieger at the meeting of the State Education Board Sept 10, 2014, who should be run out of whatever town he is in right now, just on precedent. When those activities blossomed into the Kids of Jeffco demonstrating against them I became fully engaged.
The full disclosure of Colorado interested me, and allows for a great deal of research from a distance. I've seen these directives called Sunshine Laws. I like that. Sunshine Laws. How could you go wrong with mandated full disclosure?
Well, by not checking to see what might be lying around.
Just a quick review:
Open Meetings Law C.R.S. 24-6-401
et seq.
Closed: Social gatherings and chance meetings; property matters; attorney conferences; negotiations with employee organizations; personnel; and student discipline.
I only get to see the meetings over the Video Stream (which is really cool by the way, especially when the kids are all in there and Tweeting their thoughts back and forth about what is going on) -- if anyone had any brains, they would know those kids aren't the pawns of anyone after two minutes. No, what they see is what I see. Both of us have a low tolerance for deceit and arrogant ignorance.
I've only been there for three meetings, but I've heard the board members say things like "We'll talk about this in a private meeting" many times. The way it is said is even wrong: dismissive and contempt. "These peasants will not understand the grown up conversation."
Really, something should be done about that. It's insulting, and obviously a contrivance not to have to be accountable for their actions and agendas.
So, what kinds of things are made public with these Sunshine Laws? Just about everything it seems. I was given a hint to check out one particular area, the Jeffco Financial Transparency Search Which is very fun.
Let's Play with this then. We'll put the start date as Nov 1, 2013. The end date as today. Now lets search for something fun.
Let's Play with this then. We'll put the start date as Nov 1, 2013. The end date as today. Now lets search for something fun.
What should never be mixed with State kids? That's right Church. Never mix Church and State.
So let's put Church into the Vendor field and click on Submit -- because that’s how we roll.
So let's put Church into the Vendor field and click on Submit -- because that’s how we roll.
Bam! ... except that wasn't suppose to
work, was it?... oops.
“Yeah but this is nothing”, I hear the voices say. “These
are HSCE Oct facility, and Music Recital 12/18 rental.
This is not like bringing the Bible into class or something. These are just
business transactions... with places that happen to be Churches.
There is no First Amendment thing happening here.”
Let me introduce you to a friend of mine named Blaine.
Let me introduce you to a friend of mine named Blaine.
Colorado Constitution Section 7 (The Blaine Amendment)
Section 7. Aid to private schools, churches, sectarian
purpose, forbidden. Neither the general assembly, nor any county, city, town,
township, school district or other public corporation, shall
ever make any appropriation, or pay from any public fund or moneys
whatever, anything in aid of any church or sectarian
society, or for any sectarian purpose, or to help support or sustain any
school, academy, seminary, college, university or other literary or scientific
institution, controlled by any church or sectarian denomination whatsoever; nor
shall any grant or donation of land, money or other personal property, ever be
made by the state, or any such public corporation to any church, or for any
sectarian purpose.
Colorado's Blaine
Amendment is very precise, with little room to squirm around
in. You can't buy things from a church if you are a school.
Again, I'm not a lawyer, but that seems rather plain to me.
As the U.S. Supreme Court explained a decade ago in Mitchell vs. Helms, in the 1870s "it was an open secret that 'sectarian' was code for 'Catholic.'" Because all of the Christians hated Catholics back then. They hated them so much, that they Amended the Constitution of their State to keep those Catholics away from their schools and their money. That's a lot of hate. (This is definitely one of those history lessons that Julie Williams wouldn't let you learn kids - and ironically, one that if she had bothered to learn it herself, we wouldn't be having this talk.).
There is a great history
of Blaine excerpted from pp.
88-116 of the dissenting opinion by Judge Bernard of
the Colorado Court of Appeals. Judge Bernard has some bullet points which
are applicable and make Blaine sound more civilized... so in fairness I'll
list them here.
·
Although there had
historically been conflict between Catholics and Protestants over which
version of the Bible should be read in public schools, the delegates did not
mandate that the King James Version should be read in public schools.
·
There is evidence to
suggest that Bishop Machebeuf fanned the flames of the dispute between
Catholics and Protestants in the course of the convention; the dispute might
well not have arisen had he not attempted to “intimidate” the delegates;
and, although he was rightfully concerned about religious bias against
Catholics, he was also motivated by a desire to gain access to the public
school fund. Further, shortly before the ratification vote, at least some
Catholics participated in a rally in support of the constitution’s
ratification.
·
Section 7 was passed during
a time of educational reform, in which “educational leaders and public
officials increasingly came to identify the no-funding principle with
principles of religious non-establishment.”
If nothing else I would read Judge Bernard's Conclusion very carefully and with an open mind. His points are well centered in the thinking of the Founding Fathers (and there is a collection of that thinking here on my blog) But more than that, he brings up that when this line is crossed, forAny reason, bad things happen. They just do. It's nothing against Christians or Catholics or anyone else... they just happen, and it is really difficult to find your way back again.
A clear example is down
in Florida right now. A group of Christians fought and fought and waged war to
get into the schools and teach some lessons from the Bible. They finally won. The
School Board in Orange County, Florida made the decision to allow the
dissemination of religious materials in public school.
So, they can drop off
some Bibles and pamphlets. No harm, right?
Then after a challenge
to this, a Florida judge ruled that if the Orange County school district
allowed Christian groups to disseminate Bibles and
Christian-oriented religious materials in its schools, it would also have to
allow atheist and other religions to do the same.
So, yeah, well
alright... no harm really. Right?
The Satanic Temple took advantage of this decision, deciding
to flood Orange County schools with a pamphlet entitled The Satanic
Children’s Big Book of Activities that contains kid-friendly Satanic
lessons, such as... "These bullies are mad and afraid of things
they don’t understand,” the instructions on the word-jumble reads. “Help
Damian use inclusive language to defuse the situation.
The spokesman for the Satanic Temple, Lucien Greaves, explained
that his organization “would never seek to establish a precedent of
disseminating our religious materials in public schools because we believe our
constitutional values are better served by respecting a strong
separation of Church and State.”
“However,” he continued, “if a public school board is
going to allow religious pamphlets and full Bibles to be distributed to
students — as is the case in Orange County, Florida — we think the responsible
thing to do is to ensure that these students are given access to a
variety of differing religious opinions... (Full story here)
So much for little mixtures
of Church and State being harmless. Don't cross the line. There is nothing
wrong with Civic being Civic. Jesus never said that the Christian Goal was to
Rule the world. Quite the opposite in fact... if memory serves.
So, here we are, with a
School Board that is not just breaking laws, but Constitutional laws. They
are also looking into taking in a charter school which has the requirement that
their teachers need to travel to Michigan for Religious
Training once a year, and the District needs to pay for
that?
Charter School Application – Golden View
Classical Academy (EL-13)
Recommended Action: to accept for study the charter school
application for Golden View Classical Academy
File Attachments: CAES Charter App Study GVCA.pdf (340 KB)
Our comments: Golden View is an effort to place a “Classical Education” charter school in Jefferson County. It is ‘partnered’ with “The Barney Charter School Initiative” which is a ‘project’ of Hillsdale College, of Hillsdale, Michigan. Hillsdale college was described by the conservative National Review as a “…citadel of American conservatism.” Hillsdale’s stated mission is to be “…a trustee of modern man’s intellectual and spiritual inheritance from the Judeo-Christian faith and Greco-Roman culture…”. Their “Barney Charter School Initiative” is an outreach of the College
File Attachments: CAES Charter App Study GVCA.pdf (340 KB)
Our comments: Golden View is an effort to place a “Classical Education” charter school in Jefferson County. It is ‘partnered’ with “The Barney Charter School Initiative” which is a ‘project’ of Hillsdale College, of Hillsdale, Michigan. Hillsdale college was described by the conservative National Review as a “…citadel of American conservatism.” Hillsdale’s stated mission is to be “…a trustee of modern man’s intellectual and spiritual inheritance from the Judeo-Christian faith and Greco-Roman culture…”. Their “Barney Charter School Initiative” is an outreach of the College
Since they are clearly a
Hillsdale College entity, I looked up Hilldale and after I got through the
prayers and Civil War history I found that they were involved with a Supreme
Court case.
Grove City College v. Bell, 465 U.S. 555 (1984), was a case in
which the United States Supreme Court held that Title IX, which applies only to
colleges and universities that receive federal funds, could be applied to a
private school that refused direct federal funding but where a large number of
students had received federally funded scholarships.
This isn't the exact case, but the outcome
of this directly affected the Hillsdale case. Basically, Hillsdale didn't feel
they needed to adhere to any Government compliance to civil rights or any of
that other nonsense. This was Hillsdale's response to that:
Following almost a decade of litigation, the
U.S. Supreme Court decided against Hillsdale in 1984. By this time, the College
had announced that rather than complying with unconstitutional federal
regulation, it would instruct its students that they could no longer
bring federal taxpayer money to Hillsdale. Instead, the College would replace
that aid with private contributions.
Hillsdale asserts that
it is non-secular and while it is true that Hillsdale no
longer has any denominational affiliation their Judeo-Christian culture is
inbred. The true meaning of non-secular is that a non-secular society
is one where religion is experienced in many everyday events of civic life, and
where it is part of the government. I fail to understand how the Board
could consider taking in this charter when Blaine is just going to throw it
out. I also fail to understand how the lawyer didn't bring this up.
A charter school shall be a public, nonsectarian, non-religious, non-home-based school which operates within a public school district. It shall be subject to all federal and state laws and constitutional provisions prohibiting discrimination on the basis of disability, race, creed, color, gender, national origin, religion, ancestry, or need for special education services. Enrollment must be open to any child who resides within the school district. Except as provided by law, a charter school shall not charge tuition.
This and many other Policy Laws are ignored frequently and with willful intent. With this law it doesn't matter about whether or not the Federal Voutures can be given to the Charter by the parents, side-stepping the Blaine Law -- the Charter can not exist in the District at all. So the situation should never come up.
The Board may not understand, that Public Activity in meetings is mandated by Colorado Law, it's not just a paperwork policy created by a personal business that can be ignored when every Witt feels like it. The smallest amount of allotted time a speaker may be limited to is three minutes.
These nice board members
also enjoy limiting the time available to address them more and more each
meeting it seems. To make sure they don't have to answer any uncomfortable
questions, they send their buddies messages on Facebook and Twitter to come to
the meetings and fill up the allotted time with Anything other
than answer questions regarding actual District Business.
The Board president will request that a large number of citizens who sign up to speak on a single topic select speakers and comment for no more than ten (10) minutes. An individual speaker on a single topic will be given three minutes to speak.
I'm confused by many of
their actions. Just recently they hired Brad Miller to
represent the school board without seeking proposals for the contract,
publicly vetting the candidates or getting cost estimates. So they have a
lawyer, who is said to be very versed in School law, at a $7,500 monthly
retainer fee for services not to exceed 30 hours per month, according
to a letter of engagement. The firm's services will include providing legal
advice to the board, attending meetings, helping set agendas and assisting with
communications and legislative and political issues, and initiatives. I'm
sure if they were utilizing him, he would have explained about this Church
and State thing long ago. Most lawyers are up on that area of
Constitutional law.
The board may not be
utilizing him though.
This has been an obvious
MO with Ken Witt, and in fact it was exactly this type of disregard for
anything other than his own thoughts, which Dr. Cindy Stevenson decided
not to put up with any longer, and left -- best thing she could have done for
herself -- unfortunately she took the only sane element of this body with her.
Many good leaders don't
waste time with subordinate cries for attention either so I don't want to
suggest that he doesn't have a right, due to experience and training to move
things along in a profitable and logical way. So, let's take a look at his
credentials before getting too judgmental.
Ken Witt is an IT professional with a degree in mathematics, also
endorsed by Jeffco's Republican Party, who also opposed Amendment 66. His
election website claimed that he ran the Aabren Group (a consulting firm) but
no record of that company has been found in any state's Corporation Commission.
The other company he cites, Turillion, is based
in Texas, not Colorado, and produces entry-level
firewall software that is poorly regarded amongst network
professionals for its vulnerabilities and lack of flexibility. He has few
qualifications in pedagogy, primary education, history or public
administration, and no background in historiography, contextual education or
academic standards. It also appears that Witt has
demanded the district's IT staff turn over the master passwords to
him. This would give him access to faculty and staff employment records,
student-teacher email, firewalls, and student records.
Not sure about that "demanded the district's IT passwords" stuff.( I left it, because the reference was backed up), but since the Board only has one employee, that being the Superintendent, it would be beyond Witt's purview to have that level of access to the District IT area...might even be criminal. Don't know, but if it is true, then perhaps an Oversight is required for this team. If it is not, well... too bad.
Not sure about that "demanded the district's IT passwords" stuff.( I left it, because the reference was backed up), but since the Board only has one employee, that being the Superintendent, it would be beyond Witt's purview to have that level of access to the District IT area...might even be criminal. Don't know, but if it is true, then perhaps an Oversight is required for this team. If it is not, well... too bad.
Witt rarely follows rules, and certainly doesn't follow them in the meetings. There were many critiques of this Witt-less handling of meetings from several sources, but the source I deemed probably most accurate and level headed would be from the League of Women Voters, who are not doing their thing for politics and don't have a agenda investment behind their opinion of the board's actions. I learned about the LWV from the Sep 18, 2014 - Special Meeting-S/D Session listed on the Board's calendar, which has no notes from the meeting at all and was not held in public, even though what they discussed was "very" public.
PURPOSE: For the Board of Education to meet with members of the Jefferson County League of Women voters to discuss items of mutual interest, including the following questions (requested by the Board).
- What are your plans to address the needs of all students in Jefferson County, including children of poverty, English Language Learners, special needs children, and students in pre-school?
- How are the governing policies for the Board of Education developed, implemented and amended? Are these policies the backbone of governance?
- What processes does the Board of Education use in responding to advisory boards, staff recommendations, surveys, and public comment?
- What strategies are you planning to use to reassure the community that you are placing a priority on maintaining the reputation of high standards and effective governance in Jefferson County Public Schools?
- Discuss the roles of the superintendent and the Board of Education and how they interrelate in the decision making process?
After many hours of reading, I can say with no doubts, that there are many people in Jeffco who would like answers to those questions... because they are not evident to anyone. But there are no minutes of that meeting, even though it was clearly a scheduled meeting, and policy was clearly on the schedule to be discussed.
All discussions that occur in executive session will be electronically recorded, except as permitted by law for discussions of individual students or discussions that, in the opinion of the Board's attorney, constitute privileged attorney-client communication. Recordings of executive sessions will be kept for 90 days.
The official minutes and recorded proceedings of all regular and special meetings shall be in the custody of the chief of staff for the superintendent and Board of Education who shall make them available to the public upon request and on the Board of Education webpage.--
C.R.S. 22-32-106 (Board duties – secretary)
C.R.S. 22-32-109 (1)(e) (Board duties – minutes)
C.R.S. 24-6-401 & -402 (Open Meetings Law) In fact part of the Sunshine LawsThe League was also thoughtful enough to send ahead their basic positions and expectations. How many times have you had that happen: before a group shows up to interview you? Very professional, and a practice I would love to see done more often. League of Women Voters' Positions on Education and Government Boards and Commissions
Apparently the LWV
decided that even after that backroom meeting, which didn't even have video,
the BOE was lacking in ability and form -- even when Witt could make up his own rules he didn't follow them -- and so they published this letter to BOE which
they titled: Letter from LWV to
Jeffco BOE: Follow Your Own Policies! The letter is worth
reading and ends with this paragraph:
The League supports strong adherence to Colorado's Sunshine Law.
The time has come to bring openness and collaboration back to the operations of
the Jefferson County Board of Education.
I can't seem to find a single source over the last year or so, which suggests that the BOE follows the Sunshine Laws. I wonder what the LWV will think of the BOE not following the Constitutional law either?
Witt obviously has no clue on decorum, managing kids, or basic politeness. After Julie Williams asserted her agenda on the AP History (which from her interviews with extremist news web sites clearly has her looking to put Colorado in the same state as Texas) Witt comes out with some amazingly rude, demeaning and down right nasty things to say about the kids in their protest.
“the union message
coming down through the teachers to get kids to deliberately get out and
protest something they don’t have any facts about whatsoever.” ~Ken Witt 9/25/14, Denver Post.
""I am disappointed that teachers use our students as political pawns," Witt said.~ 9news Live10:33 p.m. MDT September 23, 2014
You need to be careful
when talking to the press Witt. You sound like you are raving. You are also
dead wrong and the idea really stretches the imagination into grasping at conspiracies. The kids were rallied and moving through Twitter space long before anyone could have purposefully convinced them or organized them to do anything. It was the Teachers who were catching up with them...the Kids led this charge.
In reality, the kids had
a much better grip on what was going on than you Witt or Williams had. They
knew that their AP class was about to become someone's political agenda, which
was true and obvious after Julie Williams starts talking about her admiration
of the TEKS in Texas. She has also been listening to Larry Krieger(Hates
new AP because it closes his business selling AP
study guides) and Jane Robbins (American Principles
Project -- funded by Koch to spread dis-information to stop CCSS)
"It has an emphasis on race, gender, class, ethnicity, grievance and American-bashing while simultaneously omitting the most basic structural and philosophical elements considered essential to the understanding of American history for generations," Williams said in a statement.~ 9NEWS Live 9/24/14
Actually it doesn't have anything in it. As quoted from the AP USHistory Web site :
"The Course and Exam Description (.pdf/1.81MB) includes the concept outline, curriculum framework, and sample exam questions. These resources, alongside state and local requirements for American history courses, help teachers build their syllabi."
See, the teachers put in the curriculum according to each district's policies and local history focus. The AP isn't about learning facts and quite frankly, any student who doesn't know who George Washington, Thomas Jefferson or Martin Luther King Jr. is by this point, isn't going to be in an Advanced Placement History Course. William's whole agenda driven statements are ludicrous -- but I know where she got them. Jane Roberts gets around.
Jane's formula is very basic and if you don't check the facts, then you might buy into it. Many have, unfortunately, and Jane now has a rather large foot print out there on the web of dis-information.
To sum it up, here’s the formula being used:
1. Tell the person everything they think is false, i.e., you’re a liar.
2. Use the debunked Common Core talking points to prove those claims are false.
3. Offer no proof you are right and they are wrong, just ask questions back that are false comparisons and red herrings.
4. Confuse people by pointing them to a website that has a such a non-specific search engine it will keep them busy looking for what they asked for in their letter for the better part of a year. This will hopefully make them lose interest.
5. Declare victory.
Julie Williams never checked, and if she cared about the kids as much as she professes, she would have checked the facts before going any further. Julie Williams still doesn't realize that the information she has been touting as Un-American or not appropriate doesn't exist,-- that it is all a fabricated problem. If she would have simply read the first page of the AP History web site, she would have saved herself a lot of grief. But she didn't and she won't next time either. Julie Williams is on a mission.
Breitbart Texas spoke to Julie Williams, the Jeffco board member who has been vilified for her role in creating a proposal that would force APUSH to include "instructional materials that present positive aspects of the nation and its heritage," a committee to regularly review texts and course plans, starting with Advanced Placement history, to make sure materials "promote citizenship, patriotism, essentials and benefits of the free-market system, respect for authority and respect for individual rights" instead of encouraging "or condone civil disorder, social strike or disregard of the law," according to the Denver Post.
Williams told Breitbart Texas that the proposal they are trying to pass is to preserve US history from the progressive APUSH and it is similar to actions taken by the Texas SBOE.
"Texas passed its resolution against AP US History. In Colorado, people are talking about that," she said. "What does it hurt to look into this? Our students deserve to have the best, appropriate education possible,"
I love when extremist use words like "appropriate"
On her Facebook wall she wrote this call out to friends and neighbors:
Sign up on line- Be ready at 8:00 or your voice might not be heard and we will be drowned out by the progressives! Go to the Jeffco Schools Website, click on the link for the Board of Education on the left side of the screen and you will see the link.Remember- All eyes are on Jeffco and what we do will not only make a difference in Jeffco but the state and the nation! We need to continue to Stand Strong!
NOTE: By these statements made in public forum Julie Williams demonstrates that she has a clear and definable agenda for the schools, which directly affects the education of the children, and thus disqualifies her as a board member: By public statement by the Jeffco Tea Party, Julie Williams has frequently "pleaded for their help" in coming to the Board meetings and making statement which back her political based requests for "textbook evaluation"(read censor)
It is important that the candidate be sincerely and honestly interested in serving the whole school district for the best interests of all children. Board members shall be nonpartisan in dealing with school matters. The Board does not wish to subordinate the education of children and youth to any partisan principle, group interest, or personal ambition.-- C.R.S. 22-31-101(1)-107 C.R.S. 1-2-101South Jeffco Tea PartyAugust 29
I was very disappointed in the school board vote tonight tabling Julie Williams anti-Common Core/PAARC resolution.
South Jeffco Tea PartyAugust 29
A big positive vote out of last night's Jeffco School Board meeting is that the board voted to reject the union mediation findings of "fact." The union can no longer keep negotiations secret for this contract. Kudos to board members Ken Witt, Julie Williams and John Newkirk for their votes.And just for the simple covertness of the language, and dire mistake value, William's "Press Release" in all it's misspelled and horrible language (Granted, I'm not that good myself, but.. seriously?)
APUSH is new.I feel like i should be wearing a long trench coat and sulking in shadows.
This is important to state because some may not know it is NEW. It came into existence quite recently under dubious and secretive circumstances (just like the Common Core). If fully implemented, APUSH would greatly modify and standardize the teaching of US History in every high school in America.
New? Um, every year is New. This year was in fact very new in that there was nothing there to complain or worry about since everything was coming from the school .
Dubious and secretive? They have a website with 500+ pages. They have been around since 1900 with over 6000 people involved in creating the AP Frameworks. Press releases began happening at the beginning of last year, before she was elected, regarding the new Framework.
Dubious and secretive? They have a website with 500+ pages. They have been around since 1900 with over 6000 people involved in creating the AP Frameworks. Press releases began happening at the beginning of last year, before she was elected, regarding the new Framework.
Common Core initiative is sponsored by the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). In 2009, the NGA convened a group of people to work on developing the standards. The standards are copyrighted by NGA Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), which controls use of and licenses the standards.
Now, granted, having a bunch of United States Governors getting involved with the Standards of Education could be considered Dubious. If those guys and gals are getting together and actually agreeing on things -- that is certainly suspect. But I can't see them being very secretive about it, which is probably why they went the opposite way and flooded the network and airways with Press Release after Press Release.
The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) is a non-partisan non-profit organization of public officials who head departments of elementary and secondary education in the U.S. states, the District of Columbia, the Department of Defense Education Activity and five U.S. territories. -- perhaps you've heard of them? I would expect a member of a District School Board to know these things by heart.But I'm fairly certain that seeing conspiracy is ingrained into Julie Williams.
Last, when it comes to history I believe all children graduating from an American school should know 3 things: American Exceptionalism, an understanding of US History, and know the Constitution.Which I believe should also be the requirements of all School Board Members as well. Especially that American Exceptionalism, which I would love to watch her try to explain. But for the kids, that means:
American exceptionalism is the theory that the United States is qualitatively different from other nation states In this view, U.S. exceptionalism stems from its emergence from a revolution, becoming what political scientist Seymour Martin Lipset called "the first new nation" and developing a uniquely American ideology, "Americanism", based on liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, republicanism, populism and laissez-faire.This ideology itself is often referred to as "American exceptionalism."Notice two things kids. American Exceptionalism does not introduce religion as a quality(because that would not be different except for it being completely absent from our "birth"). Also, it does not define America as better or superior in any way, just different.
Which is .. well.. sort of true. As a nation we did not come into being through normal channels.
This is not how Julie Williams defines American Exceptionalism. Her view is the "City on the Hill" view of American Exceptionalism. The American Exceptionalism which as term Manifest Destiny ready to pop out and ambush you as a non-sequitur and everyone is expected to salute and sigh fondly.
So, the kids are all over this Witt. They know exactly what is going on, and always did. They could feel what she's after crawling across their skin, and they want nothing to do with it. Kids can generally smell crazy better than adults -- something to file away there Witt. Their walk out was based on their Vote of No Confidence they gave you and Williams. They were even able to articulate this to their teachers and their parents. They didn't know the depth of insanity they were dealing with, but they could smell the odor. They fought to save their chance at college and getting all they could out of their High School. They really could care less about the Union -- though they do have some strong loyalty to some of the teachers. Don't get that twisted though.
Kids are not pawns, or sheep, and if you plan on keeping your position, you might want to apologize and come to grips with the fact that they are invested in how well the board operates in ways you don't appear to understand.
Going over William's Facebook page and Twitter activity, and observing her in the meetings, it is clear that she is little more than a mindless follower. If it sounds "critical" or like a "government scandal" -- and there is a chance for her to be a part of it, -- then she's jumping in -- and to hell with who she hurts on the way. It is a good thing she is so heeled by Witt, otherwise she would be a major problem.
I really believe that oversight needs to be applied to this District Board. If for nothing else, training. Honestly. And I know that they are going to find that offensive, but the truth is, you don't go from knowing nothing about running a School District, to being able to do it, by vote. You are not entitled to be right by position, only by knowledge. You need training. I couldn't do it, and I wouldn't pretend otherwise. Without help you are hemorrhaging money, losing teachers, and have lost respect to the point no one trusts you anymore.
Oversight is a must. If that cannot be attained, then obviously they'll have to be recalled. They simply do not care enough about the students not to continue their current behavior.
As a final note Witt, Jefferson County School District was one of the best in the nation, and just from observance I can firmly say, has one of the best student bodies who are fully engaged in their schools and educations. As you probably know, the ranking and effectiveness of a school district directly affect property values. Property values directly affect business growth and new industry levels -- so your actions can and will be quantified into monetary values, which due to the nature of your micromanagement, disregard for teacher value, willful misuse of resources, and purposeful ignorance of policy and procedure, make you, personally, responsible for a great deal of financial damage. If you were following procedures, policies, laws you could argue that this is not the case, but you are not.
Basically, you are at the helm of a district that has been nationally recognized year after year on its performance, and you are assuring by your personal actions, that this will never happen again.
But then… I'm just a novelist.
Good luck kids. Tweet if you need me.
This is not how Julie Williams defines American Exceptionalism. Her view is the "City on the Hill" view of American Exceptionalism. The American Exceptionalism which as term Manifest Destiny ready to pop out and ambush you as a non-sequitur and everyone is expected to salute and sigh fondly.
And that claim is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government entrusted to us.
-- Journalist John L. O'SullivanO'Sullivan believe that Republic Democracy (the great experiment) was destined by God himself to spread over this continent and give glory to the heavens. That America was a moral ideal (a "higher law", a "higher calling") that superseded other considerations. -- he also believed that slavery was the only way that Whites could ever live with Blacks and at the time he wrote this phrase, most people ignored him.It just didn't fit with anyone else's view of the nation.
So, the kids are all over this Witt. They know exactly what is going on, and always did. They could feel what she's after crawling across their skin, and they want nothing to do with it. Kids can generally smell crazy better than adults -- something to file away there Witt. Their walk out was based on their Vote of No Confidence they gave you and Williams. They were even able to articulate this to their teachers and their parents. They didn't know the depth of insanity they were dealing with, but they could smell the odor. They fought to save their chance at college and getting all they could out of their High School. They really could care less about the Union -- though they do have some strong loyalty to some of the teachers. Don't get that twisted though.
Kids are not pawns, or sheep, and if you plan on keeping your position, you might want to apologize and come to grips with the fact that they are invested in how well the board operates in ways you don't appear to understand.
Going over William's Facebook page and Twitter activity, and observing her in the meetings, it is clear that she is little more than a mindless follower. If it sounds "critical" or like a "government scandal" -- and there is a chance for her to be a part of it, -- then she's jumping in -- and to hell with who she hurts on the way. It is a good thing she is so heeled by Witt, otherwise she would be a major problem.
I really believe that oversight needs to be applied to this District Board. If for nothing else, training. Honestly. And I know that they are going to find that offensive, but the truth is, you don't go from knowing nothing about running a School District, to being able to do it, by vote. You are not entitled to be right by position, only by knowledge. You need training. I couldn't do it, and I wouldn't pretend otherwise. Without help you are hemorrhaging money, losing teachers, and have lost respect to the point no one trusts you anymore.
Oversight is a must. If that cannot be attained, then obviously they'll have to be recalled. They simply do not care enough about the students not to continue their current behavior.
As a final note Witt, Jefferson County School District was one of the best in the nation, and just from observance I can firmly say, has one of the best student bodies who are fully engaged in their schools and educations. As you probably know, the ranking and effectiveness of a school district directly affect property values. Property values directly affect business growth and new industry levels -- so your actions can and will be quantified into monetary values, which due to the nature of your micromanagement, disregard for teacher value, willful misuse of resources, and purposeful ignorance of policy and procedure, make you, personally, responsible for a great deal of financial damage. If you were following procedures, policies, laws you could argue that this is not the case, but you are not.
Basically, you are at the helm of a district that has been nationally recognized year after year on its performance, and you are assuring by your personal actions, that this will never happen again.
But then… I'm just a novelist.
Good luck kids. Tweet if you need me.
