To get to the answer, I've scribed together several posts from Exceptional Delaware by Kevin Ohlandt. I give full credit to Kevin for ferreting out and documenting meeting after meeting related to the Gov and all his pawns. What I have tried to do is give the reader a sense that not one event is singular to the WEIC drama, not one event is special, and not one is organic. These meetings, who had what info, who stumbled, this was all pre-ordained by our self-aggrandizing Gov. Markell and his entitled political hacks.
Here's your answer:
The Deal - https://exceptionaldelaware.wordpress.com/tag/the-deal/
According to Fred Polaski, the Christina Board of Education President, he and Superintendent Freeman Williams met with Lindsey O’Mara, the education advisor for Governor Markell, in hashing out an agreement over the three priority schools in their district. The Delaware Department of Education was there at the beginning of the meeting, and left soon after. More details as they emerge…
I’m not sure if this was at this meeting, before, or after, but apparently DOE Officer of Accountability Penny Schwinn told Christina she already has three assistant principals already in mind for the three priority schools during the “transition”.
The Christina Board is getting ready to vote on the decision to follow this plan, developed not by Christina and the DOE, but Christina and Governor Markell’s office.
The Christina Board passed the Markell/DOE plan (still waiting to find out whose plan it was), by a 4-1-2 vote. For those keeping track, the yes votes belonged to John Young, Elizabeth Paige, David Ressler and Fred Polaski. Harrie Minnehan voted no, and George Evans and Shirley Saffer abstained. The board also voted unanimously for a second referendum on May 27th.
This was buried in a blogpost last March on ExceptionalDelaware - a post that garnered no comments (rare!) However, this meeting has a far reaching impact. Let's start with the attendees - O'Mara, representing the Governor, Penny Schwinn, on behalf of DOE, Superintendent Williams and Board Member Fred Polaski, for the Christina School District. Notably, Coach Murphy was absent. It's been rumored that the Gov. ordered Murphy to stand down and lay low. You can find the plans that this covert team hammered out here: http://www.boarddocs.com/de/christina/Board.nsf/Public,
file:///C:/Users/Robert/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/INetCache/IE/B9L61DGO/2015-03-10%20Statement%20of%20Agreement-CSD%20and%20DE%20DOE.pdf
We know that the Christina Board of Education passed the plans and sent them on to Delaware's appointed Secretary of Education Coach Murphy where they languished for almost a year, unsigned, unfunded, and unimplemented. And while those plans gathered dust, Murphy got the Markell shuffle, out in August, replaced by the new Sec. of Education, Steve Godowsky, confirmed in October - who was shortly notified thereafter of the Priority School Plans that Christina had submitted months previous. And from October to February, those plans lay dormant in the bowels of the Townsend Building.
Until last week's State Board of Education Meeting when Godowsky shakily admitted that he had the plans in his possession. It went down something like this: (Transcription by ExceptionalDelaware)
Heffernan: I just want to add that, you know, the approval of the priority schools plan by Christina is, is it months or years late? So I have very little patience for Christina for semantics on that. They literally refused to approve plans to help the kids and honestly, I think got us to this table where we are today.
Secretary of Education Dr. Steve Godowsky: I just want to make this clear. On January 22nd of 2016, I sent Christina’s Acting Superintendent a letter indicating that either the board or the Acting Superintendent can submit and activate the, uhm, the original application for the priority, or the MOU that they submitted a year ago.
See that underlined part: That's Godowsky admitting that the DOE has been in receipt of the OMara-Markell negotiated MOU "that they (CSDBOE) submitted a year ago" last March. Watch him ho-hum his way through this while carefully not correcting State Board Member Heffernan who for some reason knows nothing about the year-old document now in Godowsky's back pocket.
Godowsky: Uhm, so that is what you are suggesting. It may not require a vote from the Board but we wanted to make sure which plan they want to move forward and if it was the MOU plan, and I have talked to the Board President. Then that will be acceptable to us going forward.Indeed, he had talked to the Board President, as I confirmed with Harrie Ellen Minnehan. Godowsky was talking with the district as far back as his Confirmation in October 2015. And more recently, on Minnehan's drive from New Castle to Kent County for this very meeting. If only, he had just cut Hef off...His aha moment wasn't far behind.
Thank God for Tony Allen!Heffernan: One thing that really troubles me about this is if the Christina Board doesn’t fully support these plans then, you know, we’re back to where we always were. And this is, so I, I, we can’t make, we have no authority to make any local boards approve anything, I totally get that, but I’m just very disappointed that this continues to be hard to get them to agree to help the priority schools. That’s all I’m saying.Godowsky: And the Christina Board did sign off on their plan about a year ago with one day difference so I think they did support that plan. And now that we know that’s the plan on the table then we can move forward, I believe we can do our due diligence and be in a position to review that plan and make modifications.
Heffernan: So they approved this a year ago?
Godowsky: As part of, uhm, the Memorandum of Understanding, between the district and others that negotiated that alternative to the original plan, as I understand it. I was…
Allen: As I understand that, the impasse was between Christina and their approved plans and the former Secretary (Mark Murphy), not that they didn’t approve the priority school plans. That is my understanding.
Heffernan: But the Department didn’t approve the plans?
Allen: Correct
Heffernan: So we’re going to take the same plans that the Department didn’t approve…
Godowsky: I don’t want to speak for Christina, and I don’t have all the history that they were the stumbling block, but later on there was an MOU submitted that never got signed off on at the Department level. I don’t know the reasons in detail. But I just know what I’ve looked at, in terms of the MOU, it’s consistent with much of what we want to do with those three schools, instructionally, which we’ve talked about since October, that I’ve been here. And, given some modifications, I’m ready to move forward.Followed by this gem:
Godowsky: I’m in receipt of those plans. I just needed, in a sense I have those plans.He had the OMara/Markell Plan! Signed by CSDBOE. And yet, when the State Board plays into a political trap, they really fall all over themselves. Because this drama just kept playing out - even Tuesday night as the WEIC convened to discuss the action of the State Board on its submitted PLAN - New and Improved with contingencies.
It was there that the CSD President brought it home to the State Board President:
https://exceptionaldelaware.wordpress.com/2016/02/25/state-rep-kim-williams-slams-state-board-exec-director-donna-johnson-at-weic-meeting-tonight/
The best moment of the evening, which drew a huge round of applause, was when Christina Board President Harrie Ellen Minnehan informed Dr. Gray about how former Secretary of Education Mark Murphy never signed their memorandum of understanding developed with their board, the DOE, and representatives from Governor Markell’s office. Dr. Gray actually said she wasn’t aware of that even though she was told this at the December State Board meeting. She told Minnehan she misread the addendum to the WEIC plan, even though it was very clearly spelled out.
Thank you Ms. Minnehan! For setting the record straight. The State Board of Education has been dabbling in libel against CSD for all too long. Quinn Grey admits that she got it wrong, all wrong. She might have well come out and told us all that state board members in general don't bother to read the information that comes before them. And that makes TWO or Heffernan wouldn't have felt so comfortable assailing the CSDBOE just a week earlier, and at every opportunity he can when there is press in the room.
The question is: Why is the State Board hellbent on tainting the CSDBOE? It couldn't be just a coincidence that the same week the the State BOE assaulted CSD for the umpteenth time, the district rolled out a new referendum strategy. I mean, don't all students benefit from a successful referendum, especially the children served in the priority schools? What is the State Board's Motivation?
I said it at the beginning of this post - Nothing is organic. These events didn't just happen naturally. Just as Lindsey O'Mara's sudden departure this month didn't happen naturally. She's off to Washington D.C. and soon Jack Markell will join her there. But, not before he single-handedly blows up the Christina School District.
It's always about the man behind the curtain.
