The Thoughtless Board?

Sometimes I wonder what people are thinking.  Like my mom would say to me after I did something that shouldn't have been done...."Johnny, what were you thinking?"  (Her exasperated tone doesn't translate well to  print)  I never had much of an answer, at least none that would work to my benefit, so I would just shrug and mumble "I dunno." Not knowing what I was thinking- not the best defense.  I never got out of trouble with the 'I dunno' excuse.

Lately, as I follow the tragic-comedy that is still unfolding in our School District, I have stopped wondering what people are thinking and have really begun to wonder if people are thinking.  To clarify, the people I am talking about are the current School Board Directors.

In the metaphorical sense if we were to compare a school district to an animal, the Directors are the brain, in that they are supposed to lead the district.  Right?  The Board isn't in place to nod complacently and rubber stamp every policy change proposed by the Superintendent.  No, not at all.  The Board is supposed to provide the vision of where the school district should be in order to do the best possible job of teaching our children.  The Directors are also responsible for making sure that the District is operating efficiently and without corruption.  Sometimes they need to vote down a proposal that the Central Administration brings to them because the proposal is a bad idea or, in the case of the MLK sale the proposal is down-right shady.

I'm not sure if the present School Board understands this.  I just finished going over a spreadsheet detailing the voting history of the Board from 12/5/07 - 5/18/11.  BTW, putting this spreadsheet together took a lot of hard work and I am very grateful to Chris Stewart of the Seattle Chapter of Parents Across America for researching the votes and compiling the spreadsheet.  You Rock Chris!

Chris certainly rocks but judging by the spreadsheet, the School Board rolls.  As in rolls over almost every single time a vote came up.  My opponent, the District 1 incumbent, voted "Yes" 99.7% of the time.  99.7%.  I had to go back to the spreadsheet to make sure I was reading that % correctly.   In fairness to my opponent, 99.7% was not the highest percentage of of 'Yes' votes cast by a Director.

I dunno....I have to believe that either he knew what the proposals were about and it just so happened that this Director agreed with G-J/Enfield 99.7% of the time, or he didn't know and voted 'Yes' 99.7% of the time because he trusted the Superintendent(s).

I truly believe that my opponent cares about and wants to do right by kids.  So I have to conclude that he voted 'Yes' because he trusted the superintendent(s).

But here's the thing- It's not ok.  It's not ok to not think.  It's not ok to not learn.  It's not ok to blindly trust anybody, especially corrupt, mediocre, journeyman superintendents.  Some of those 'Yes' votes will hurt the kids that the Board is supposed to protect.

I'll tell you about one of those votes in my next blog entry.  It is one of the reasons I decided to run.

Have a good night.

John