The Echo

I dropped this comment on Kilroy's Delaware earlier today in response to a comment thread there.  I think it's worth sharing with my own readers.  But, here's the thread at Kilroy's so that you can get the context: http://kilroysdelaware.wordpress.com/2010/05/05/christina-school-board-eye-gouging/

Kilroy,


I think this all really amounts to Christina being a “board in transition.” Intense cultural change doesn’t happen overnight and it frequently comes with pushback as described by Patrick Lencioni in his best seller, “The Five Disfunctions of a Team.” Not a thriller, but the message gives me hope that at the end of this road, Christina will emerge stronger, more cohesive, and strategically placed to achieve success for our students.

There’s no proven road map for change, even Mass Insight admits that; however, we have to flip the question around and start asking, how do we save teachers? Not how do we cut personnel osts? Something has to give. The deficit appears real to me, regardless of how we got there. But, when eliminating your one Latin teacher in the only Latin program in the district, leaving students in midstream unable to attend the local university b/c their admission standards demand 4 consecutive years of a single language, the action is simply unacceptable. Our administration could not make promises that they would be able to bring in a part-time employee to fulfill the students collegiate needs. With the deadline that was still 11 days away, there was still time to rethink some of our options.

I was also unhappy to learn that our board and administration does not think it appropriate for the board to vote on the elimination of programs, such as the arts, in our schools. That’s micro-managing, we’re told.

It was not offered to the board Tuesday night that these 43 units were eliminated due to attrition. And if that is the case, it illustrates the problem of information not being shared universally with all board members.

These are examples, directly from Tuesday's meeting, that illustrate the type of barriers affecting Christina’s students. It’s just the surface but indicative of the deep directional shift we need to engage in order to have finally righted the ship that the Wise era capsized.

And if that’s showboating, so be it.