The Echo

I'd like to share some thoughts regarding Christina's Public Board Meeting last Tuesday at Bancroft Elementary School.  These thoughts do not constitute official minutes of any kind, nor do they represent the opinions of the Christina Board or District.  They are mine and mine alone.

1) Congratulations to our new board leadership, Pres. Eric Anderson, and V Pres. Fred Polaski. 

2) Thank you to all the Wilmington constituents who came out to our board meeting.  It was refreshing to see the influx of concerned citizens.

3) There is not now, nor has there been in my term, a recommendation to cease having our monthly public board meetings in the City of Wilmington. There is not now, nor has there been in my term, a recommendation to change the frequency of our meetings in the city.  For those who came to the meeting believing that Christina's board was vacating the city, you have been lied to.

4) There is a board action item regarding the locations of our monthly meetings. 

• The board is studying whether limiting ourselves to a singular location in each portion of the district would increase community and parent involvement.  Traditionally, our meetings engage far too few members of the public.  I have heard from suburban-based constituents on multiple occasions that our schedule of constantly changing locations has a tremendous impact on their decisions to attend meetings.
• Until Tuesday night, I had never received any feedback from my Wilmington constituents as to their preferences for our public meetings.
• In June, the board began a discussion as to whether we should enact changes regarding locations.  The rotation of meetings would stay the same and we did approve the dates.  Staff was requested to determine which locations would be the most appropriate.  Should the board choose two singular locations, administration recommended Sarah Pyle Academy and Kirk Middle School.
• Before the board could even begin a discussion on this topic with the requisitioned information, we received considerable public comment from community activists and elected city officials regarding their desire to continue the meeting schedule as it has been for the last 30 years.  There was a lot of angry rhetoric aimed at the board - much of stemming from the falsifications that someone has been propagandising.  Therefore, I want to share a heartfelt statement with all Christina constituents:

I do not believe that there are any among us, members of the Christina board, who have any interest in disaffecting any of our constituents.  We began the process of evaluating locations in order to determine whether a change to a 30-year-old process would warrant greater involvement.  I do not believe that the existing 30-year-old practice is adequate nor successful. It simply has not driven in the community engagement that this board desperately wants to compel.

I listened to our constituents Tuesday night who articulated the desired propagation of the current practice.  As such, I motioned that the board continue to rotate our locations in the city as our constituents requested and to dedicate a single centralized location in the suburbs as my Newark constituents have requested.  This was to be a best of both worlds compromise.  It was met with a former board member grandstanding - after public comment had long ended - about how the City and Suburbs should be treated equally followed by blasphemous blame upon the current board for 30 years of division and inequality between those portions of the district separated by 15 miles of highway.  My motion failed along with a couple others.  Ultimately, Mr. Young presented a motion to maintain our rotating locations district wide.  It passed.

As for the board workshops - this discussion will be continued July 26th at our Gauger-Cobbs workshop.
It's important to note to that the provision for monthly workshops is a mechanism that the 2010-11 board implemented.  These meetings are not a part of the boards 30 year history. With the increased demands being placed upon school boards due to the state and national education climate, some board members have found some of its work cannot be given due consideration during the regular monthly business meeting provided for in state law. The workshops allow board members, administration, and the public to sift through pertinent education issues - and is some cases, less-pertinent, yet strategic ideas.

Again, I believe our board genuinely wants unity and equality across our district. I was three years old when the deseg order came down to Delaware.  I was not a part of the board that utilized forced busing as required by law nor of the board that attempted to close schools or implement neighborhood schools.  After thirty years, Christina has a rich, though sometimes troubled history. We are stymied by problems inherent of disparate poverty throughout our district.  Poverty doesn't care about the 15 miles of highway.  We are officially a minority-majority district, as well as the largest district in the state.  Our board is one attempting to rise above decades of failure, and a fairly recent financial meltdown to spur achievement regardless of where within Christina our children reside.  While there is much to be learned from our history - and it can never be forgotten - I cannot stress enough that berating our board for having difficult conversation about the best way to balance our constituents requests and achievement goals is simply an ineffective strategy.  Yes, some past Christina boards may not (personal experience here - refused to) listen to the public, I ran for my seat in Christina, because I was determined to change our district's culture.  Because I believed that we, as a board, could do better in setting policy and expectations and in responding to the needs of our families and communities.

As stated, our board will continue to tackle the topic of workshop locations, later in July.  I sincerely hope that our constituents now realize that someone told them vicious rumors intended to question the integrity of the board.  I am certain that it was by design and not error. It is important to note that should our constituents have such mind boggling concerns in the future - board members are available every day to set the record straight.  We each avail ourselves to the public through the publication of our personal contact information on the district website.  Please do not hesitate to reach out to us.  And please, when you hear something as ludicrous as the the flat-out lies shared last week, don't wait for our once a month business meeting!  Call us immediately!