Priorities

When the current superintendent assumed the helm of our district for the 2005-2006 school year seventy-five percent of our students met or exceeded the state benchmarks in Reading and seventy-four met or exceeded in Math. For the 2008-2009 school year (the latest for which the data is available) those numbers had fallen to sixty-nine percent in Reading and sixty-two percent in Math.

Reading - fell from 75% to 69%
Math - fell from 74% to 62%

During this same time period, the amount spent on administrative salaries climbed by 34%.

Administration is not a substitute for teaching. If we want our kids to be successful we need to re-set our priorities. The most important employees in our district are the teachers and staff who interact directly with students. Our budgets should reflect that but they don't.

When teachers and classified staff tell the Board there are problems with the leadership of this district, as they did with their vote of no confidence last year, their concerns should be investigated. Instead, the Board treated them as naughty children and announced immediately and with no further discussion that they would support the superintendent 100%. They could have acted to fix the problem but chose not to, preferring instead to demonstrate their unswerving loyalty to their employee, no questions asked. The message that sent to our teachers and classified staff created irreparable damage to the educational environment that our kids participate in everyday.

It's harming our children and it must change.